2021

Moody’s Research Views

Research Views turned Moody’s credit opinions from long PDFs into pages analysts can work in: the rating action and its drivers up top, key indicators that chart against peers, a scorecard to test scenarios, and highlights that save to your snippets. We shaped it in a one-week design sprint, testing a prototype with users at the end of the week.

Moody’s Research Views
Role
I designed the sprint’s concept and built the prototype that users tested at the end of the week.
Outcome
The testing earned our team the brief to design the new Moodys.com.
Product
Moody’s Research Views, credit research
Industry
Financial Services
Year
2021

A credit opinion that reads like a product

  • Analysts read credit opinions the way they always had: top to bottom, then into a spreadsheet.
  • We took one report and turned it into a page you can scan, compare, and keep.

The rating before the reading

  • The header answers what changed before anything else: the upgrade from Ba2 to Ba1, the outlook, the short-term rating, and the ESG score, with the rating’s history beside it.
  • The analyst’s brief sits next to it as a video, or as audio for the commute.
The rating action, outlook, and ESG score, with the analyst’s brief as audio
The rating action, outlook, and ESG score, with the analyst’s brief as audio

Notes that stay with the text

  • Selecting a passage offers to save it or comment on it. Analysts’ own comments sit in the margin beside the line they’re about.
  • Everything saved collects in My snippets, ready to download or share as a link.
Highlighting a passage and finding it in My snippets
Highlighting a passage and finding it in My snippets
An analyst’s comment beside the passage it explains
An analyst’s comment beside the passage it explains

Indicators you can compare

  • Built for people who work in spreadsheets all day: each key indicator opens from a row in the table into a chart, with the forecast years shaded.
  • Peers from the same sector join the chart from a search, and the view saves to your snippets with an annotation.
EBIT margin opened from the table into a chart, then compared against Teck
EBIT margin opened from the table into a chart, then compared against Teck

What would change the rating

  • The scorecard shows how each factor feeds the rating. Entering your own measures runs a scenario, and the indicated outcome moves with them.
Dragging two leverage measures moves the indicated outcome from Baa3 to Baa2
Dragging two leverage measures moves the indicated outcome from Baa3 to Baa2

The same thinking, one level up

  • The testing went well enough that our team was asked to design the new Moodys.com.
  • The issuer pages took the report’s parts and laid them out as a grid: the rating and outlook up top, then news sentiment, risk signals, and key indicators an analyst can scan before opening any research.
  • We tried it two ways, as tabs and as a single page.
An issuer’s overview: news sentiment, key indicators, and risk signals
An issuer’s overview: news sentiment, key indicators, and risk signals
Revenue by US segment on the Geographic Exposure tab
Revenue by US segment on the Geographic Exposure tab
The single-page version: rating history, takeaways, and key indicators
The single-page version: rating history, takeaways, and key indicators

Starting from the inbox

  • Most readers arrive from an alert, so the email carries the rating action, the key exhibit, and the reasons for the upgrade, with one way into the full research.
The rating alert that leads into the report
The rating alert that leads into the report