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Client: Raging Bull , Boston, MA   The Challenge: Merging Online Communities into a Novel, Unified User Experience Rapidly communicate the "big vision" of a newly combined-community user experience after a merger or acquisition, highlighting key differentiating benefits and how the user experience enables a "win" for the members of both communities Use rapid prototyping techniques to articulate site functionality and communicate business benefits in a cohesive, easy to demonstrate Web-based mockup which invites valuable feedback from users Generate a test bed for quickly validating the value of user experiences mechanisms and catalyzing the development team to develop the software Raging Bull is a leading financial services community site, providing individual investors with access to the discussions and information previously reserved for investing professionals. Raging Bull provides free real-time stock quotes, news, original editorial and more than 13,000 dynamic discussion boards. Recently cited by Media Metrix as one of the most engaging sites on the Web and selected as one of Forbes Magazine’s "Best on the Web," Raging Bull has grown to a community of more than 600,000 registered members who rely on the site for the information they need before making an investing decision. In February 2000, AltaVista acquired Raging Bull, combining a shared commitment to provide a world-class user experience for financial content, community and discussion on the Internet. To successfully articulate this strategic business goal meant a challenge to combine the strength of Raging Bull as a trusted community resource for financial information with AltaVista’s powerful brand, global reach and unique user experience. Raging Bull asked HumanLogic to envision and creating a working prototype of a new user experience that combined the both the Raging Bull and AltaVista Money user experiences to create a new financial site, a premier destination for people who are passionate about personal finance. The HumanLogic Solution HumanLogic worked with Raging Bull and AltaVista executives to develop a conceptual demo of the newly merged user experience by analyzing the business goals of Raging Bull and AltaVista, and the goals, values and profiles of the two online communities. HumanLogic led strategic sessions with executives to rapidly articulate and refine the customer experience strategy, and to decide how to best demonstrate proposed features and functionality. Part of the challenge was to create a branded, easy-to-use customer experience that would be valued by both experienced online investors (and many "early adopters") from the Raging Bull community, and the wider mass-market demographic that was part of the AltaVista community. The site needed to encourage AltaVista Money users to see value in and utilize Raging Bull community features. HumanLogic developed several models for information architectures and user interfaces which were iterated and became the basis for the final solution prototype. In addition, the prototype incorporated several different branding schemes for blending the identities of the Raging Bull and AltaVista sites. This prototype was used as a test bed for gathering market research from customers and validating that all target communities would see value in the new user experience. Results Employing rapid prototyping techniques to quickly capture, articulate and refine the customer experience, HumanLogic developed a demonstrable system in three weeks that featured 18 screens, showing details such as message boards, message postings, and a searching user interface for rapid quote searching. This system provided a test bed for conducting online focus groups to validate the user experience quickly among target users, and as a demonstration to show senior management - all target segments responded positively to the user experience. HumanLogic’s design featured a newly-merged visual branding scheme that combined the identities of AltaVista and Raging Bull, and a new visual model for navigation that was designed to make it easier for users to move around the site and understand the value of each section. Aspects of the user experience such as curved-tabbed elements and the enhanced Quote & Message Board search have now become part of the overall AltaVista Money channel user experience.