Oscillio is a bond OEMS prototype for buy-side fixed income desks I have been developing with AI since early 2026. This is an ongoing project with a working engine of nearly 10,000 simulated corporate bonds with realtime charting, constantly fluctuating prices and a simulated RFQ environment for executing trades.

This is an ongoing project where my experience of designing fixed income applications and my exploration into AI tooling converge.

An OEMS, shorthand for order & execution management system, is a workspace for traders to manage their orders, make informed decisions, and execute their trades. Oscillio is my interpretation of this workspace, using my years of experience designing for fixed income workflows at MarketAxess, tackling familiar problems head on using AI prototyping.

It's important to note that my intention for this project from the start was to treat this as a true end-to-end project, less of a clickable prototype, more of a functioning React based MVP with Auth0 login, session management, window management and data simulation.

Furthermore, Oscillio is designed to be a complementary layer on top of a traders existing relationships with their dealers and their venue of choice - not a replacement. Oscillio simply taps into that existing workflow and provides a better more cohesive experience for the entire order management and execution journey.

Background

Unlike equities, the corporate bond market has been traditionally slow to adopt new technologies. But in the last decade, new regulations forcing an increase in pre and post trade transparency have helped accelerate the adoption of electronic trading, leaving over-the-phone dealings further and further behind. Then in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic more or less forced most bond sectors online, as remote work became the norm overnight.
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In the years since, electronification of the corporate bond market has continued to mature, offering traders powerful tools for automation, algorithmic trading and portfolio trading, growing in favourability among many bond traders.

The problem

Many incumbent platforms are slow to adapt and struggle when it comes to delivering a consistent user experience among different features and workflows. The tools that own this space are indeed powerful - but often rigid in their design and held back by an older technology stacks and legacy systems. Furthermore, these tools often do very little to distill complexity for different types of users, it's very much a what you see is what you get scenario.

Finding a solution

I wanted to design an OEMS built on a lean framework, a modular, fully customisable front-end so the user has better control of their data and how it's displayed. Whether they’re working from a browser on their laptop, or locked in at their multi-screen desk, Oscillio should perform as expected in a high stakes environment.

Oscillio is designed for the high stakes, time sensitive world of bond trading, ensuring a delicate balance between offering a trading experience with minimal friction, but with necessary guardrails at the right moments. A trader should be able to navigate large lists of bonds with little to no slowdown, while the core trade execution experience is designed with speed bumps to eliminate accidental trades. They should never feel like the UI is struggling to keep up the pace, but ready to serve at every stage.

The UI should feel snappy and responsive, there's little room for overly elaborate transitions or micro interactions in the wrong places. A trader should never feel left in the dark - success states should feel intentional, hitting the trade button should hold weight and feel meaningful. And when things don't go according to plan, it can be frustrating to receive vague error messages that lack context, or worse - no feedback at all. So it's crucial that the trader remains informed at every step of the journey.

Familiarity is key. Make it easy for the trader to hit the ground running. Allow them to configure their workspace to their workflow. Embrace tried and tested conventions a trader will be used to, but introduce more widely used patterns that will elevate their experience.

Key features

Modular Interface

Built with GoldenLayout. Multi-window support, resizable panels, pull panels out into new windows. Full persistence between sessions.

Testing out multi-window support on a large display.

Using AI as part of the process

Introducing Claude Code as part of my process this year has been a game changer that has allowed a far higher level of fidelity that just wasn't possible for prototyping before. For this project in particular, I wanted to push myself out of my Figma comfort zone and work almost exclusively in code.

Robust and frequently updated markdown files became central to the project, a design.md file that behaved as a single source of truth for visual language, target audience, tech stack, major workflows within the product. This really helped to keep Claude Code on track between sessions and served as it's memory.

Alongside Claude Code, I used the note taking app Obsidian as all notes are written in markdown - I've found it perfect for note management for all my projects and adding ideas on the go.

What's next?

Oscillio is in active development and is by no means a finished product - it is by all accounts an ambitious project to take on. But I'm excited about the possibility of getting it into the hands of potential users to test and further improve the product in the future.