Harnesses in Obsidian. Chains of .md skills. Agent workflows (essentially cron jobs) serving Discworld emojis and Futurama memes.
One Exchange (OX) runs electronic trading platforms for crude oil and natural gas liquids. After its rebrand, the platforms still used their old interfaces, and each one had its own login with its own look.
I audited the platforms, then redesigned OX Trading, the core platform, in the new brand. The trading screen keeps its layout so traders’ habits still work. The changes cut colour back to where it carries meaning, give actions a clear order of importance, and make orders quicker to place and confirm. Handed off to One Exchange’s developers in 2026.
After
BeforeTraders sign in to several OX platforms, and each has its own login. Before the redesign those logins shared nothing: a card on a teal gradient, a dark form under the old logo, a grey header bar over a plain form.
Each platform still keeps its own login. They now follow one design in the new brand, with each platform’s name on its own screen, so the experience is consistent from the first screen a trader sees.
The work focused on OX Trading, the core platform. It began with an audit of all four platforms and a dive into how commodities trading works: how traders and brokers make a trade, and what terms like hit, lift, depth and implied mean on screen.
OX’s traders move fast and have firm habits, so we kept most of the trading screen’s structure. The changes went into cognitive load: a clear order of importance for actions, and colour only where it carries meaning, with one logic for bids, offers and order states.
What the audit found on OX Trading
Frequent actions that sat in dropdowns moved into view, like the three order kinds in New Order, and the order forms got quicker to fill. Confirmations now say what will happen: the sell confirmation shows the product, total quantity and price, and Hold All and Kill All ask first.
On mobile, the desktop page in a web wrapper became an app, with light rows, groups that fold and swipe actions.
Handed off in 2026. One Exchange’s engineers are building it, so there are no shipped numbers yet.
How we’d know it worked
[What you learned, in your words.]
Rodolfo: Working with Trace has been a delightful experience that made me grow as a leader.
If I had to point out at one of her strongest skills, that would definitely be the ability to look at a design piece, understand that something is off, and turn that vague feeling into an objective and actionable feedback.
This ability to effectively deliver feedback has brought a lot of value to the team output and increasing their work quality.
Trace was instrumental in our product design efforts to deliver a clean and scalable design system that made development smooth and efficient. She brought real polish to our product through her thoughtful approach to iconography and visual design.
Her ability to balance design thinking with practical execution made her contributions incredibly valuable from both a product and engineering perspective.
I loved how she brought fresh ideas to the table, explained everything clearly, and kept everyone on track toward our goals. The design system she built for us finally gave us the consistency we needed.
Trace works fast without sacrificing quality, quickly grasps complex information, and always delivers valuable insights. She’s approachable, genuinely cares about the work and was a true pleasure to collaborate with. I can’t recommend her enough!
When the client struggled with inconsistencies and scalability issues in their design system, Trace’s deep understanding of both design principles and technical constraints allowed her to implement a solution that not only addressed these challenges but also improved the overall user experience. The impact of her work cannot be overstated.
Her innovative approach to simplifying the design system was a game changer, leading to greater consistency, efficiency, and ease of use for the team.
I appreciate Trace's organized and analytical mind. She communicates clearly and helps add extra clarity to processes that might otherwise be muddy and unorganized.
She advocated for us, fostered collaboration, and invested in everyone’s growth. Her leadership created an environment where we could do our best work and support each other.
I learned so much from her about what it means to lead.
Currently at Noterro, building a design-to-code workflow loop with a design system that’s readable by AI on Figma and from the codebase.
Before that, I led design operations at Helcim and designed products at Tiller.
I’ve been lucky to work product end to end. That means weaving comfortably between product discovery, product design, brand design, and design systems.
When off duty, I’m building internal tools and micro apps for fun.
If you’re looking to geek out about AI and design, I’d love to chat. Reach out and we can swap .md skills.
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