Order Book redesign

[ericnakagawa]

Buy/Sell on Trade Page needs more obvious state change

I can barely tell if I am making a buy or sell order without reading through confirmation screen. Have almost made several buy orders when actually meaning to sell.

[justmoon]

Probably relevant: This is what the current mockup for the Trade page looks like.

[ahbritto]

So Buy USD and Sell USD are buttons? Grey when they are in active? Or colored when they are used as labels?

[elilang]

Buttons will be colored when they are selected. Also notice the background of the input area changes to match the color of the button. this gives visual feedback to help connect the button pushed, the input field and the list of open orders.

[ahbritto]

Still, I don't think people are used to clicking grey buttons.

Maybe they should be tabs.

[vhpoet]

Buttons

I like the bitstamp version. https://www.bitstamp.net/market/order/instant/

• Bitstamp buttons don't look like in a disabled state. (We use the same style for disabled "Place order" and enabled "Buy USD" buttons, which is not good)
• Bitstamp buttons and form are in a same white box, which shows their relation.
• Our buttons div has a left/right margin, but the form hasn't. Looks like form is in a parent element, but in reality it should depend on buttons.

Order book

• I see a table with 6 columns, but the first 3 should not be related to last 3. They should be 2 different tables. Bitstamp has a strong differentiation between bids and asks.
• What if we show currencies right after the numbers? (3 small/grey letters) like it's done in bitstamp?

[elilang]

Thanks for the feedback, I have been working with arthur a bit on this and we have made some changes, still a draft. i will try and spend some time on it today.

[vhpoet]

@elilang please let me know when you'll have the final version, so I'll start working on it.

[justmoon]

Not sure about splitting the pair selector back into two separate currency selectors. Basically that makes switching between orderbooks take twice as many clicks and it makes it more likely that you'll select pairs in the wrong ordering (e.g. XRP/BTC instead of BTC/XRP), which then takes even more time to fix.

What I do like is making it so that you can change issuers without having to go through "change issuer" first.

I can also imagine some cases where it might be nicer to have separate selectors for each currency. But during the day to day I think I'd want to be able to switch between my most-used orderbooks as quickly as possible.

Maybe we can fit both?

[macdrac]

it doesn't make sense to me if your base currency USD but always have to perform buy and sell action with counter currency (XRP) buying and selling USD. wouldn't it make more sense to use xrp as a base currency to buy and sell other currencies? or usd as a base currency to buy/sell xrp or other currencies? or you choose your base currency and buy and sell other currencies with your base currency?

[macdrac]

I hope elilang don't mind me messing with his design but I beg you to keep it simple and compact, most of the time I spend on my tablet rather then my laptop or desktop. Compact and mobile friendly design is the best thing about bitstamp. That's why they don't need to waste resources on making mobile apps because they already work just fine with mobile.

[justmoon]

@macdrac

or you choose your base currency and buy and sell other currencies with your base currency?

I think you're confused about the term "base currency". From Reuter's financial glossary:

The base currency, or denominator, is the first in a currency pair, the second currency is the quoted currency. The value of the quoted currency is expressed in terms of one unit of the base currency. In euro/dollar, for example, the value of the dollar is quoted or expressed in terms of one euro. With Canadian dollar/U.S. dollar, the value of the U.S. dollar is quoted in terms of one Canadian dollar.

So the price is always the price for one base currency unit in however many counter currency units.

Feedback on your mockup:

• I like where you moved the tabs, I think that's something we should consider.
• You only have one field for selecting the issuer. How do you select the second issuer for a pair like USD/BTC?
• I don't like that you made the order value an output-only field. Sometimes you know the amount you want to sell, sometimes you know the amount you want to get for it. It's nice to be able to enter either one and have the other filled in for you.

[macdrac]

Yes you are right, I did not know exact definition of "base currency". thanks. And it is confusing. Do we really need it? Removing might help to keep ripple FAQ smaller.

Now about my mockup. point 1. Thanks. I just would love it to be as efficient as possible. fever clicks, the most important info and functions in one page. at your finger tips. point 2. I haven't traded anything but xrp usd yet, so.. I forgot that part. fixed. point 3. I really don't see any necessity for that, so If something is not essential it's should be removed, Ialways thought.. But then again after thinking about it more, maybe I'm not quite yet understand what ripple is, what will it become, what kind of ppl will be using it and what for. I'm not sure now. You can keep it I guess, it doesn't bother me all that much. I just think minimalistic approach works out better at the end. To the end user-consumer. Most of the time at least.

[elilang]

Hey @macdrac Thanks for the feedback. I think you bring up some good ideas that we will consider implementing. We are still far from a finished design. Stay tuned for more and better.

[macdrac]

I just really love the concept of ripple. Even in it's infancy I think it's just amazing. And I want to help it grow bigger and greater any way I can.

[vhpoet]

@elilang please also consider https://github.com/rippleFoundation/ripple-client/issues/573

[dcawrey]

I like the candlestick charts, is there a plan to add technical features like moving averages to this?

[CaptainBraindead]

I like the construction going on, as it is more intuïtive.

Yet - I want to put forward the following, since time and time again I get confused by the way things are set up from the ground. It does not follow the format ("sides") globally used in any "forex" trading.

You see: when selected "USD/XRP" in the top left, then USD is should be considered the "base currency". Normally, selling the base currency (you want to buy XRP) would go to the left column (="bidding" for the cross currency, in this case XRP) . And buying the base currency (you want to sell your XRP) would go to the right column ("asking" the cross currency XRP). Of course, marketwise, the ask will be higher than the bids.

That is just the other way round from what we have now: the two columns would switch... If you set it up this general way, though, the entire trade platform makes more sense IMHO.

Any standard forex would show something like this: (This one is actually from the Interactive Brokers platform:)

What's additionally confusing to me, is that the number of XRP per USD are shown. More understandable (and logical if we want to attract people to Ripple!!) would be to express XRP in USD. So "XRP/USD"... $0.02 etc. Please note: that would mean the columns left buyser USD/right sellers USD would be in the right place after all....

Currently achieving this might pose a practical problem (since there are many decimals at current prices of 0.014521437 etc. ) so temporarily a "flip" option just like in the RippleCharts would be nice (to get an idea of USD-cents per XRP). Long term, though, as XRP would rise in value agains fiat currencies, I would simply state 1 XRP = x.xx USD (and the likes) which is way better to understand for newcomers!

[macdrac]

I have to agree with CaptainBraindead, after using the system for a while now I still can't get used to some things that are other way around than common sense would suggest. I understand probably there is some reasoning behind it but no matter how I look at it I think it's a mistake, both short term and long term. If on the node side we place an order to sell 10'000 XRP for 100 USD there is no difference (technically) how do we choose to display that order on my client side (10'000 xrp at 0.01 usd each.. or 100 USD at 100 xrp each). The only difference is that only one of two ways makes sense to me - buy/sell xrp for usd does. And the way I see it, it all can be implemented with some reasonably small changes to the client. Maybe even by adding button that would flip over xrp - usd for those who wants it and let the rest enjoy xrp as their ground currency if they wish so.

another thing, when I open 'My Orders' I see price in XRP if I sell USD, but I see price in USD if I buy USD, this very uncomfortable because I have to use calculator just to check if it's right (maybe I did a mistake, double checking everything etc). At least in history it could show at what price I placed my order but it only shows how much ripple I bought/sold for how much USD.. (I have short memory and poor math skills)

[[edit: the next issue copied to another bots related ticket]] third thing I'm starting to notice is increasing bot activity, bots are already flooding the network, I fear it will get out of control when ripple will get more popular. So we are thinking there should be some limits on that, maybe number of open orders per wallet, or time limit (ie new orders can be placed only after 30s etc) or maybe combination both. maybe it should not be forced on to the nodes, maybe nodes can choose to set some limits as time goes to ease the load on the network etc. maybe even transaction fees should be added, even if a fee is as low as 0.0001% it still adds some control, while manual trader won't care much about tiny fees, bots that are flooding the network with hundreds or thousands of bogus orders will have to care at least a bit. Maybe this ticket is not the right place to complain bots, sorry about it if so [[..]]

a bit back to the beginning, I feel ripple is trying to promote XRP a bit too hard, sometimes more like trying to force it down my throat. There is no need for that, XRP will promote it self over time. Newcomers might find ripple system too confusing and complicated and not user friendly. I believe system should not focus so much on promoting xrp, and making it The currency of the system by force. Let the customer to choose how he want to use system, please

[vhpoet]

@elilang please also consider #715

[vhpoet]

@elilang please also consider #761

[vhpoet]

@elilang one more thing to consider in trade design #200

[vhpoet]

@elilang also check #866

[jargoman]

I've placed a few buy orders instead of sell orders because of the confusing interface. Cost me at least 1000 xrp :(

[rdc]

Hello OpenCoin

There are some great suggestions and mock-ups for the new Trade page in this Issue #447 . Is any of it being implemented? Can we expect a release or an update at sometime?

The reason that I am asking is because we just had another incident reported to us of someone who got confused on the Trade page a placed a Bid instead of the Ask that they intended to place.

Thanks again.

rdc