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Here's an interesting alternative viewpoint about the Bloomberg terminal interface published in 2010. http://uxmag.com/articles/the-impossible-bloomberg-makeov

Here's an interesting alternative viewpoint about the Bloomberg terminal interface published in 2010. http://uxmag.com/articles/the-impossible-bloomberg-makeover http://uxmag.com/articles/the-impossible-bloomberg-makeover From the article: "Simplifying the interface of the terminal would not be accepted by most users because, as ethnographic studies show, they take pride on manipulating Bloomberg's current "complex" interface...The more painful the UI is, the more satisfied these users are. The Bloomberg Terminal interface looks terrible, but it allows traders and other users to pretend you need to be experienced and knowledgeable to use it." Dare I suggest that this tendency to keep software unnecessarily complex is something quite common, particularly in the open source community where attempts to improve ease-of-use are often met with resistance and claims of 'dumbing down'?

mastazi 11y ago
Interesting, I think it boils down to the fact that the Bloomberg Terminal interface is not intended for the general public. I think simplifying its UI would be like forcing an experience programmer to use something like SourceTree rather than command-line git: it just wouldn't work for them, they would lose the "muscle memory" acquired over years of typing away commands on a keyboard. On a different note, I am quite wary of some people within the open source community who seem to love their esoteric and unnecessarily complicated UIs.
thrownaway2424 11y ago
It's not that hard to use and the support is amazing. You hit the "help" key twice and someone from Bloomberg support calls you.
whatok 11y ago
Have you used one before? The UI is not complicated at all.
rottyguy 11y ago
AOL had this problem. With paying customers, if you change something in the UI, some segment will hate it and scream and you end up losing customers which is often noticed by corp and immediately remedied. Also, Traders aren't traditionally known as the most tech savvy people (they live and die on excel), so I doubt there's much complaints on their end.
- rspeer 11y ago
  Even though traders might not be tech savvy in a programming sense, what I've seen of a Bloomberg terminal (briefly, I'm not a trader) is that it's largely keyboard driven, with something similar to a command line, for the same reason that programmers prefer to use the keyboard and command lines: because it's an efficient, powerful use of muscle memory. Also, it's monospaced, for the same reason programmers want things to be monospaced: because that way anything can be tabular data. The article the GP linked is just wrong. People aren't opposed changing the terminal interface just because they're masochists. They're against changing the terminal because they have learned some powerful skills with it, and the "Web 2.0"-looking replacement that the designers are proposing has no equivalent of those skills.
  - HiLo 11y ago
    The last thing you said is probably the most accurate of the comments so far :) Most simply don't have time / can't be bothered to make these changes when the system works fine as it has for 15 years and you have $5mm PNL swings each day.
JackFr 11y ago
To someone proficient on a Bloomberg terminal, it's like emacs or vim. Your hands never leave the keyboard. Would you call emacs unnecessarily complex?
- jzelinskie 11y ago
  Sure, but there are also an awful lot of developers using Sublime for good reason.
  - headcanon 11y ago
    There's a lot of people using yahoo stocks as well.
brandonmenc 11y ago
I remember reading that in pre-iPhone Japan, this was a big selling point for new phones - that they were puzzles to solve.
Mikeb85 11y ago
> The Bloomberg Terminal interface looks terrible, but it allows traders and other users to pretend you need to be experienced and knowledgeable to use it. It's actually not too terrible. I kind of like it, and it's not particularly difficult to use. The allure of the Bloomberg terminal is the sheer amount of data that you have instantaneous access to... I know of plenty of other places to get real-time quotes, and company information, but none that have all the info in one place like the Bloomberg terminal.
dang 11y ago
Please don't make single-issue accounts on HN. Threads here are supposed to be conversations, so we want people to participate as people, not novelties or abstractions. Anonymity is fine, of course.
_nedR 11y ago
This. I find this is a big trap that nerds tend to fall into. We invest a lot of time and effort into tools and systems that have a steep learning curve (unix, vim, emacs) because it is a source of pride to master something that is so difficult and esoteric. Being influencers, we have a strong network effect, and end up perpetuating these systems without considering whether they really are the best way of doing things or whether they can be improved in any way. As far as Bloomberg is considered, they have a strong financial incentive to do this as well. It raises the switching cost for their users who have invested so much time into mastering their product.

mastazi 11y ago

Interesting, I think it boils down to the fact that the Bloomberg Terminal interface is not intended for the general public. I think simplifying its UI would be like forcing an experience programmer to use something like SourceTree rather than command-line git: it just wouldn't work for them, they would lose the "muscle memory" acquired over years of typing away commands on a keyboard. On a different note, I am quite wary of some people within the open source community who seem to love their esoteric and unnecessarily complicated UIs.

thrownaway2424 11y ago

It's not that hard to use and the support is amazing. You hit the "help" key twice and someone from Bloomberg support calls you.

whatok 11y ago

Have you used one before? The UI is not complicated at all.

rottyguy 11y ago

AOL had this problem. With paying customers, if you change something in the UI, some segment will hate it and scream and you end up losing customers which is often noticed by corp and immediately remedied. Also, Traders aren't traditionally known as the most tech savvy people (they live and die on excel), so I doubt there's much complaints on their end.

rspeer 11y ago
Even though traders might not be tech savvy in a programming sense, what I've seen of a Bloomberg terminal (briefly, I'm not a trader) is that it's largely keyboard driven, with something similar to a command line, for the same reason that programmers prefer to use the keyboard and command lines: because it's an efficient, powerful use of muscle memory. Also, it's monospaced, for the same reason programmers want things to be monospaced: because that way anything can be tabular data. The article the GP linked is just wrong. People aren't opposed changing the terminal interface just because they're masochists. They're against changing the terminal because they have learned some powerful skills with it, and the "Web 2.0"-looking replacement that the designers are proposing has no equivalent of those skills.
- HiLo 11y ago
  The last thing you said is probably the most accurate of the comments so far :) Most simply don't have time / can't be bothered to make these changes when the system works fine as it has for 15 years and you have $5mm PNL swings each day.

JackFr 11y ago

To someone proficient on a Bloomberg terminal, it's like emacs or vim. Your hands never leave the keyboard. Would you call emacs unnecessarily complex?

jzelinskie 11y ago
Sure, but there are also an awful lot of developers using Sublime for good reason.
- headcanon 11y ago
  There's a lot of people using yahoo stocks as well.

brandonmenc 11y ago

I remember reading that in pre-iPhone Japan, this was a big selling point for new phones - that they were puzzles to solve.

Mikeb85 11y ago

> The Bloomberg Terminal interface looks terrible, but it allows traders and other users to pretend you need to be experienced and knowledgeable to use it. It's actually not too terrible. I kind of like it, and it's not particularly difficult to use. The allure of the Bloomberg terminal is the sheer amount of data that you have instantaneous access to... I know of plenty of other places to get real-time quotes, and company information, but none that have all the info in one place like the Bloomberg terminal.

dang 11y ago

Please don't make single-issue accounts on HN. Threads here are supposed to be conversations, so we want people to participate as people, not novelties or abstractions. Anonymity is fine, of course.

_nedR 11y ago

This. I find this is a big trap that nerds tend to fall into. We invest a lot of time and effort into tools and systems that have a steep learning curve (unix, vim, emacs) because it is a source of pride to master something that is so difficult and esoteric. Being influencers, we have a strong network effect, and end up perpetuating these systems without considering whether they really are the best way of doing things or whether they can be improved in any way. As far as Bloomberg is considered, they have a strong financial incentive to do this as well. It raises the switching cost for their users who have invested so much time into mastering their product.