Designing information systems for maximum use in a dealing room environment

The paper reports on an investigation into the users of financial dealing room systems in the City of London. These subjects have used a wide range of interactive systems for a number of years. Retrieving information from such systems is an integral and important part of the professional work of a financial dealer. Use of specific systems and specific features is often discretionary. The results obtained indicate that these users can display expert performance with a subset of each system. The same users also displayed novice performance with a large proportion of the functionality of the same systems. The pattern of known and unknown functions varied from user to user, but appeared not to be related to the user's job tasks. Accommodating such users in the design of future userinterfaces is discussed. Parallels with previous studies into discretionary and casual users are drawn.