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Finance is a complex domain largely unexplored in the human factors literature. Modern financial trading systems involve a variety of coupled socio-technical systems (e.g. humans and technologies) and have become highly automated. Recent stock market crashes, such as the well-known Flash Crash, show automation-initiated dynamics. This suggests that a human factors understanding of this environment may be useful. In this article, we report an initial attempt to model buyer-side Automated Trading (AT) systems using a Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) approach. A Work Domain Analysis (WDA) model is presented to describe the automated financial trading domain. This work has implications for applying CWA to finance but also advances the understanding of how to model a highly automated domain.

Cognitive work analysis is useful to develop displays for complex situations, but it has not been well explored in providing support for human-automation coordination. To fill this gap, we propose a degree of automation (DOA) layering approach, demonstrated by modeling an automated financial trading domain, with a goal of supporting interface design in this domain. The abstraction hierarchy and the decision ladder each adopted an additional layer, mapping functions allocated to the trader and to the automation. In addition to the mapping, we marked the four stages of automation on the decision ladder to provide guidance on representing the function allocation at the task level. Next, we compared the DOA layering approach to how automation was represented in the cognitive work analysis literature. We found that a DOA-layered decision ladder, which included well-developed knowledge of the stages and levels of automation, can be suited to modern automated systems with different DOAs. This study suggests that the DOA layering approach has important implications for designing automation displays and deciding stages and levels of automation and may be a useful approach for modeling adaptive automation.

In this paper, we report on a recent interface design and evaluation process for a new knee and hip automatic physiotherapy assistant and rehabilitation system (ARS). Interface design was concurrent with the development of ARS. The ARS has the potential to improve the automation of rehabilitation treatments, by providing quantitative measures of a patient’s motion. However, the complexity of rehabilitation information available to the therapist has increased with this additional information. We applied Ecological Interface Design (EID) to understand the domain of physiotherapy and the role of the automation. Results of a Work Domain Analysis (WDA) revealed new functions and constraints in rehabilitation now accessible through the ARS, and provided the design requirements for interface design. A novel interface was designed which is currently undergoing evaluation to see if it improves the quality and experience of physiotherapy. This study provides an example of the advantages of using EID at the early phase of design, and how to apply EID to a system of increasing automaticity.