How to interface the products

By definition, an interface is the zone of contact between two different environments. The classic man-machine interface expresses the means of dialogue between man (human possibilities) and machine (technical environment). The design of this dialogue and its elements is grouped under the term interfacing.

The advent of the digital society has led to a proliferation of "intelligent" products. Modifying existing products opens up possibilities for exchanging information that can lead to optimum management of its use. A simple radiator can be programmed, can constantly provide information on its status (consumption, temperature), and can even advise the user. Products have been developed to become instruments for dialogue between people (cell phones), between people and institutions, organizations, structures, information bases (tablets)... As a result, the quality of interfacing has become a major imperative in product design, and many firms have even made it a strategic element that has enabled them to overtake and sometimes annihilate their competitors.

Interfacing includes basic elements (icon, text...) and the syntactic arrangements of the elements between them. By analogy with language, we're talking about words (vocabulary), their combination into sentences (syntax, grammar) and expression (tone). All elements of the system carry meaning and are subject to the vagaries of interpretation. The aim of interfacing work is to create a coherent information system that can be learned and understood easily, quickly and handled safely and efficiently.

Man/machine dialogues were at the root of the birth of ergonomics. The very first studies in this discipline, which originated in the RAF (Royal Air Force) during the Second World War, were concerned with the choice and optimization of dialogue devices (pilot/aircraft). The types and formats of dials even led to standardization, which was overtaken and called into question by the emergence of new technologies. Technology and the human factor developed in parallel, following the classic division of disciplines into hard and soft sciences. The notoriety of Apple products, whose interfacing system has become a de facto standard, has demonstrated the strategic importance of this field in the success and adoption of products and new behaviors that open the door to a digital society. The proliferation of research and development teams (in the telephony, IT, aerospace and automotive sectors) bears witness to the vitality of this sector, under a paradigm that now combines different skills ranging from cognitive psychology to IT and design.