Share Khan - A Success Story
Share Khan is an equities-focused organisation tracing its lineage to SSKI, a veteran equities solutions company with over five decades of experience in the Indian stock markets. SSKI developed Share Khan as a site to help the inexperienced cross section of the Indian populace to make informed decisions about investing in stocks over the web. The site today, enjoys the reputation of being the Number 1 site in its category. It has a registered user base of more than 50 , 000 people. The site is highly visible. It is one of the few dotcom ventures that have been taken and used seriously by investors in India and abroad.
The Original Site
The site was launched in February 1999 amidst great hype. Over time and with the growth of the company, a need was felt for improving various aspects of the site including branding, visual design, site architecture and the user experience that did not measure up to the brand image that the company wanted to project.
To carry out the above tasks, SSKI felt the need to bring in consultants who had the ability to deal with these issues arising in operations on a large scale.
Cambridge Technology Partners
They were brought in as consultants to improve the functionality of the site, both technically and visually. The technical aspects of keeping up with increased user demands and features and facilities offered by the site were all dealt with to everyone’s satisfaction. It was felt that the site architecture and the user experience still left room for improvement, and SSKI decided to bring in Fractal Ink to fill this need.
Our Role
Our reputation as designers with flair for translating a company’s brand onto their website and for creating great user experiences got us this project. We were given the responsibility of revamping the entire site to reflect the brand of the company. Creating a site that was easily scalable and low on maintenance was also one of the primary requirements.
Branding Goals
Share Khan is branded as a company that demystifies stock trading and assures users of help and support at any time to manage their portfolio. Their print-based communication material was very successful in portraying this image. The goal of the website redesign exercise was to make the website also reflect this image. Research revealed that the users expected and wanted a site that was -
- Very friendly and welcoming
- Quickly explained the basics
- Helped them along the way
- Would be their one point of all required information for them to make safe investments
With some support from the team at Share Khan, we made a checklist of objectives for the site. The objectives included issues such as look and feel, ease of use, download speeds and navigation, since all these put together forms the user experience and branding is all about user experience. We then explored ways in which to execute these objectives so they reflected on the site. First of all the site architecture was revamped to make the user feel in control. Our designs used minimum colour. The layout was done with special care to visually create a feeling of openness.
Site Architecture Goals
- Restructure the entire navigation to make it more user friendly
- Improve accessibility of various sections from other sections
- Improve the flow of information
Content chunking was reworked and the navigation redesigned. Various links were placed so that the flow of information remained uninterrupted. The ‘Quick Link’ feature was added to increase accessibility to all the sections of the site from every page. A lot of thought was given to the positioning of the various fields throughout the site.
Visual Design Goals
- Optimise the site for slow connections
- Achieve visual consistency
- Layouts should be clean with minimal embellishments
Most of the images were taken off, the site made very light and the download speeds were reduced substantially. Only one colour was used through most of the site, and two other colours were used where some differentiation was needed. The colours that were chosen came from the web-safe palette to make sure that its appearance is consistent in multiple browsers. Style sheets were created to keep the vast amount of content consistent visually. A clean, slightly serious and professional look was given to the entire site, where levity is brought by the mascot of the company, Share Khan.