London Stock Exchange Group
Designing Data-Driven Responsive Breakpoints for a Global Financial Platform
Using real user telemetry to scale Refinitiv / LSEG Workspace across screen sizes, monitors, and trading environments.
Role
Principal Designer
Team
None
The task required a level of analytical thinking and front-end framework knowledge that was not available within the design team.
Duration
3 weeks
Years
2020
Tools
Snowflake
Figma
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Powerpoint
Featured Quotes
"This is genuinely top-tier portfolio material — the kind most designers never have."
"This is systems-level UX leadership, not just responsive design."
"A senior-level case study that shows research depth, systems thinking, data-driven decision-making, and real organisational impact."
What is case study demonstrates
Enterprise-scale problem solving
Systems thinking
Data-driven UX strategy
Data fluency working with real production data
Design & engineering alignment
Key activities
Key outcomes
About the company
London Stock Exchange Group plc, also known as LSEG, is a global provider of financial markets data and infrastructure headquartered in London, England. The LSEG Data & Analytics Division is the rebranded name for the company Refinitiv, which it acquired in 2021. Refinitiv itself was the new name for the Financial & Risk division of Thomson Reuters after it sold that part of the business in 2018.
With over 40,000 customers and 400,000 end users across approximately 190 markets, LSEG Data & Analytics is one of the world's largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure.
Overview
LSEG Workspace is a next-generation financial data and analytics platform developed by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), following its acquisition of Refinitiv (formerly part of Thomson Reuters). Positioned as a flagship terminal, it is the direct evolution and eventual replacement of the legacy Thomson Reuters Eikon platform.
Overview
Designing responsive interfaces for enterprise financial platforms presents challenges that go far beyond traditional web or mobile design. Refinitiv Workspace is used by financial professionals operating across highly diverse hardware environments — from laptops to multi-monitor trading floors, including ultra-wide and 4K displays.
This case study documents how I led a data-driven investigation into real user viewport behaviour, translating large-scale production telemetry into evidence-based responsive breakpoints for Refinitiv Workspace. The outcome was a more robust, scalable foundation for app and framework design across the organisation.
Context
- Organisation: Refinitiv (now LSEG)
- Product: Refinitiv Workspace (Now LSEG Workspace)
- Principal Product & UX Designer
- Timeframe: 3 weeks, June 2020
Refinitiv Workspace is a modular platform comprising hundreds of financial applications used for market monitoring, research, trading, and analytics. Unlike consumer products, Workspace apps frequently run in resizable windows, are embedded within layouts, and are often used simultaneously across multiple screens.
The Problem
Responsive design decisions across Workspace were historically based on:
- Assumptions about “standard” screen sizes
- Generic CSS framework breakpoints
- Inconsistent interpretations across app teams
This led to several systemic issues:
- Layouts that broke at smaller viewports
- Over-optimisation for large screens at the expense of usability
- Inconsistent responsive behaviour across apps
- Difficulty scaling design decisions across hundreds of products
Responsive design decisions across Workspace were historically based on:
- Assumptions about “standard” screen sizes
- Generic CSS framework breakpoints
- Inconsistent interpretations across app teams
This led to several systemic issues:
- Layouts that broke at smaller viewports
- Over-optimisation for large screens at the expense of usability
- Inconsistent responsive behaviour across apps
- Difficulty scaling design decisions across hundreds of products
The key question became:
How do screen resolution, viewport size, and real user behaviour actually affect how Workspace apps should be designed?
Research Objectives
The goal was not simply to document screen sizes, but to establish a defensible, data-driven foundation for responsive design decisions across the platform.
Specifically, I aimed to:
- Understand real application viewport sizes, not just screen resolutions
- Identify minimum viable viewports that apps must support
- Quantify how users actually work across multiple monitors
- Evaluate whether existing breakpoint conventions aligned with real usage
- Define breakpoints that could scale across apps, layouts, and devices
Data Sources & Methodology
Application Viewport Analysis
- Analysed 29,310 real app requests from Workspace web usage logs
- Data retrieved from Snowflake
- Covered a representative sample of core applications
Measured:
- Average viewport width and height
- Minimum and maximum viewport dimensions
- Distribution across different apps
This allowed analysis of how large Workspace apps are in practice, rather than how large screens are in theory.
User Screen Resolution & Monitor Analysis
- Analysed 126,215 logged user sessions over a two-week period
- Desktop and laptop displays only
Captured:
- Screen resolution usage
- Number of monitors per user
- Primary, secondary, and tertiary displays
This dataset revealed not just what screens users owned, but how they actually worked.
Industry Framework Comparison
- To avoid reinventing patterns blindly, I reviewed how common frameworks (Bootstrap, Foundation, Tailwind, etc.) define breakpoints and grouping strategies.
- This provided useful reference points — but also highlighted that there is no universal standard, especially for enterprise platforms.
Application Viewport Analysis
- Analysed 29,310 real app requests from Workspace web usage logs
- Data retrieved from Snowflake
- Covered a representative sample of core applications
Measured:
- Average viewport width and height
- Minimum and maximum viewport dimensions
- Distribution across different apps
This allowed analysis of how large Workspace apps are in practice, rather than how large screens are in theory.
User Screen Resolution & Monitor Analysis
- Analysed 126,215 logged user sessions over a two-week period
- Desktop and laptop displays only
Captured:
- Screen resolution usage
- Number of monitors per user
- Primary, secondary, and tertiary displays
This dataset revealed not just what screens users owned, but how they actually worked.
Industry Framework Comparison
- To avoid reinventing patterns blindly, I reviewed how common frameworks (Bootstrap, Foundation, Tailwind, etc.) define breakpoints and grouping strategies.
- This provided useful reference points — but also highlighted that there is no universal standard, especially for enterprise platforms.
Key Findings
App Viewports Are Smaller Than Screens (Apps are not maximised to fill the screen)
Across all sampled apps:
- Average app viewport: ~1442 × 801 px
- Average minimum viewport: ~535 × 324 px
- Absolute minimum recorded: ~150 × 108 px (edge cases)
This reinforced a critical insight:
Designing for “screen size” alone is insufficient — apps must be robust within much smaller, constrained viewports.
1920 × 1080 Is the Dominant Baseline
User screen analysis showed:
- 1920 × 1080 accounted for ~50.7% of usage
- 1366 × 768 laptops were the second most common (~10%)
- 1280 × 1024 desktops still represented meaningful usage
- Ultra-wide and 4K displays formed a smaller but important long tail
This confirmed that while 1920 px is a critical breakpoint, most usage spans a wide middle band, not just extremes.
Multi-Monitor Usage Is Common
User behaviour showed:
- ~51% using a single screen
- ~31% using two screens
- ~13% using three or more screens
- Extreme cases of up to 15 screens in trading environments
This reinforced the need to support resizable, multi-window workflows, not fixed layouts.
Viewport Width Distribution Is Not Normal
When analysing viewport width distribution:
- ~70% of app usage sat between 1024 px and 1920 px
- ~15% exceeded 1920 px
- ~15% fell below 1024 px
The data did not form a clean bell curve, meaning evenly spaced or arbitrary breakpoints would disproportionately disadvantage real users.
Unexpected Insight: Very Tall Viewports
An intriguing maximum viewport height of 2635 px appeared in the dataset.
This was likely evidence of:
- 4K monitors used in portrait orientation
- Common in research, monitoring, and trading workflows
This validated the need to consider vertical scalability, not just width.
App Viewports Are Smaller Than Screens (Apps are not maximised to fill the screen)
Across all sampled apps:
- Average app viewport: ~1442 × 801 px
- Average minimum viewport: ~535 × 324 px
- Absolute minimum recorded: ~150 × 108 px (edge cases)
This reinforced a critical insight:
Designing for “screen size” alone is insufficient — apps must be robust within much smaller, constrained viewports.
1920 × 1080 Is the Dominant Baseline
User screen analysis showed:
- 1920 × 1080 accounted for ~50.7% of usage
- 1366 × 768 laptops were the second most common (~10%)
- 1280 × 1024 desktops still represented meaningful usage
- Ultra-wide and 4K displays formed a smaller but important long tail
This confirmed that while 1920 px is a critical breakpoint, most usage spans a wide middle band, not just extremes.
Multi-Monitor Usage Is Common
User behaviour showed:
- ~51% using a single screen
- ~31% using two screens
- ~13% using three or more screens
- Extreme cases of up to 15 screens in trading environments
This reinforced the need to support resizable, multi-window workflows, not fixed layouts.
Viewport Width Distribution Is Not Normal
When analysing viewport width distribution:
- ~70% of app usage sat between 1024 px and 1920 px
- ~15% exceeded 1920 px
- ~15% fell below 1024 px
The data did not form a clean bell curve, meaning evenly spaced or arbitrary breakpoints would disproportionately disadvantage real users.
Unexpected Insight: Very Tall Viewports
An intriguing maximum viewport height of 2635 px appeared in the dataset.
This was likely evidence of:
- 4K monitors used in portrait orientation
- Common in research, monitoring, and trading workflows
This validated the need to consider vertical scalability, not just width.
Design Decisions
Selecting Breakpoints for Workspace
Rather than copying consumer frameworks, I evaluated multiple breakpoint models against real usage data.
Two primary options were compared:
- One skewed heavily toward desktop widths
- One more evenly distributed across actual usage bands
I selected the balanced model, which:
- Reflected real viewport distribution
- Ensured each breakpoint served a meaningful percentage of users
Preserved a minimum 320 px column width, critical for:
- Mobile
- Auxiliary panels
- Embedded app layouts
This approach ensured responsive rules were driven by evidence, not convention.
Next Steps
(at the time)
Integrate breakpoint logic more deeply into:
- Layouts
- Embedded apps
- Desktop client behaviour
- Re-analyse trends on a regular cadence
- Continue exploring larger (XL) and edge-case breakpoints
- Ensure mobile considerations remain first-class, even in desktop platforms
Impact
This work established a data-backed foundation for responsive design across Refinitiv Workspace:
- Provided a single source of truth for breakpoint decisions
- Reduced layout breakage across apps and devices
- Enabled app teams to design with confidence
- Improved consistency across hundreds of applications
- Supported both constrained and high-end professional setups
- Created a framework suitable for ongoing monitoring and iteration
The findings directly informed design system guidance, app framework decisions, and future roadmap planning.
Reactions
"Wow! This is fantastic research. Incredible work from a UXer who clearly knows what he's doing! Only a very experienced designer with an analytical mindset and technical knowledge would have been able to produce that document!"
— Mike K. - Software Engineer in Wealth @ LSEG / Refinitiv
"Amazing work!"
— Giorgio V. - Product Design Director, and various team members @ LSEG / Refinitiv
"Wow! This is fantastic research. Incredible work from a UXer who clearly knows what he's doing! Only a very experienced designer with an analytical mindset and technical knowledge would have been able to produce that document!"
— Mike K. - Software Engineer in Wealth @ LSEG / Refinitiv
"Amazing work!"
— Giorgio V. - Product Design Director, and various team members @ LSEG / Refinitiv
Original Reports
View and download
Note: Client details from usage logs are obsfuscated.
Testimonials
I have been really impressed by Yooch's personality and knowledge of Workspace customer needs and behaviours.
Yooch is one of those gifted individuals who is equally at ease in designing clear and intuitive interactions, building sophisticated responsive prototypes and communicating customer-centric solutions with stakeholders of all kinds.
Despite the aggressive deadlines and the incredible pressure put on him and the rest of our team, Yooch's dedication, calm and confident approach has been truly remarkable.
Yooch can be both a great team leader and player! I would recommend him without hesitation for any design project.
— Giorgio V. Director, Product Design.
Giorgio worked with and directly managed Yooch in the same group at London Stock Exchange Group and Refinitiv
Have had the opportunity of working with Yooch several years now.
His contribution and Design expertise have been key in driving the Product forward.
He has a wide set of Design and Financial skills; always highly collaborative with team and open with his contributions and ideas.
— Jorge S. Global Head of Product Management, Desktop Platform
Jorge was an internal client of Yooch at at London Stock Exchange Group, Refinitiv and Thomson Reuters
During our collaborations, I was impressed by Yooch's broad design abilities, technical expertise and his focus on formulating evidence-based design solutions.
Yooch also influenced improvements to the company's product offerings through presentations attended by designers, developers and product managers.
His professionalism, expertise and people skills would make him an excellent leader for any user-centric organisation.
— Alan H. Product Manager, Design Systems | Technology Governance Specialist @ London Stock Exchange Group (formerly Refinitiv & Thomson Reuters)
Alan was an internal client of Yooch at at London Stock Exchange Group and Refinitiv
Yooch, you were called out by David R in today's Spotlight as being one of the team who helped deliver the OTC App.
David R said: "a massive thanks.....I cannot say 'Thank you' enough. We (the OTC product team) feel extremely lucky ...you and the team...saved the day."
This app provides a workflow that Bloomberg doesn't have.
Early user feedback is promising, and it looks like it will contribute to retaining existing customers and gaining new ones.
Congratulations Yooch. It's great when we get recognition and feedback from our product partners, of the work that you were involved with."
— Helen J. Director, Product Design @ London Stock Exchange Group (formerly Refinitiv & Thomson Reuters)
Helen was a manager of Yooch at London Stock Exchange Group, Refinitiv and Thomson Reuters
Not completely sure how we will cope without you but I guess its a consolation that you get to help a new team with your unmatched design confidence... Thank you so much for everything this past year. I appreciate it more than you'll ever know.
— Christiana A, Product Owner @ London Stock Exchange Group (formerly Refinitiv & Thomson Reuters)
Christiana was an internal client of Yooch at at London Stock Exchange Group and Refinitiv
It has been an education working with you. You are a veritable font, if not an absolute NIAGRA of knowledge - about design [and] trading... It's been really great working with you, and you sir are one of the reasons why I joined this place!"
— Karl S. Principal Designer / Senior Design Manager @ London Stock Exchange Group (formerly Refinitiv & Thomson Reuters)
Karl was a colleague of Yooch at at London Stock Exchange Group and Refinitiv
More testimonials
You can find 18 more testimonials from internal clients / stakeholders, product owners and product design team colleagues across Thomson Reuters, Refinitiv and London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) - successive forms of the same organisation over the years - in the testimonials section.
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