Online Investment Portfolio's User Interface

User Interface Overview

In order to market my system successfully, I will first and foremost want the system to be appealing and easily usable. That way the investor will be attracted to the system initially and want to explore it further. An attractive and intuitive User Interface will serve this purpose. It will allow easy access to the information, research, and analysis sections, all of which will be tailored to the user's needs and interests.

As far as programming is concerned, the site will be developed primarily with HTML, CSS, PHP, Scripting, and Java. The financial information will be accessed from various publicly available sources. The nature of PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) will allow me to provide the investor with dynamic content, and will allow me to create an environment with which the investor may interact to get specific, tailored feedback. The content will be both comprehensive and easy to use. Each interaction with Online Investment Portfolio will take the investor one step closer to achieving her financial goals.

Below I will discuss the following User Interface modules and provide a sample graphic of what the window may look like: Main View, News Center, Fundamentals, Valuation, Buy & Sell, and Tax Estimator.

Online Investment Portfolio's Main View

This window will provide the investor with a visual view of her overall portfolio. Indicators will include a pie diagram of stocks owned based on industry (for example, technology), dividends paid, and company size (market capitalization - small cap, medium cap, or large cap). The amount of cash available to the investor will be displayed here as well. This value will automatically account for cash invested in securities.

Online Investment Portfolio's News Center

This area will profile the latest and most important news releases for the companies in the investor's portfolio. It will then align and compare these news releases to the company's mission statement, so the investor may decide if the company is maintaining its focus. It will only focus on key developments, and ignore small news items it considers insignificant.

Online Investment Portfolio's Fundamentals

This function will display a description of each company in the investors portfolio, information about its products and industry, and basic trading data such as volume and market capitalization. This section will also include information regarding insider holdings and planned transactions, as well as institutional investment.

Online Investment Portfolio's Valuation Screen

This window will valuate companies in the investor's portfolio based on the indicators I think are most important to a company's success. These include earnings per share, net profit margin, estimated growth, debt-to-equity ratio, net income (from the income statement), receivables and accounts payable (from the balance sheet), cash flow from operating activities and free cash flow (from the cash flow statement). Specifically, this area will not merely display numbers, but it will analyze how these numbers are growing or declining, and display a growth valuation as well as an overall valuation on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best.

Online Investment Portfolio's Buy and Sell Screen

This window allows the user to input the stocks she has purchased or sold, the price she purchased or sold them at, the commission she paid, as well as any relevant notes she would like to enter as a reminder.

Online Investment Portfolio's Tax Estimator

The tax estimator provides a simple calculation of capital gains taxes the investor can expect to pay based on her annual income, gains, losses, and holding periods for stocks.