Handling information tools in turbulent environments: a view from the trading floor

People controlling complex systems is often associated with domains such as air traffic control, power stations, chemical plants or other industrial settings. Financial markets are, however, not well explored in human computer interaction research although they are of similar complexity and may offer valuable lessons to other work domains. Foreign exchange dealers in trading rooms in banks and brokerage houses work in highly stressed environments where decisions are made in narrow time windows and where the electronic push is very high on many measures-volume of information, speed of delivery and complexity of content of messages. The use of electronic text and filtering tools by foreign exchange dealers was studied to examine how and why skills at using these tools might impact performance. Based on a case study of foreign exchange dealers at a large Danish bank, the study proposes measures for "IT-reliant" and "nonIT-reliant" users of information handling tools and suggests that such users can be distinguished by two main characteristics, attitudes and knowledge of the market and filtering tools. Hypothesis on the possible connection between these different types of users and performance were also explored.