From a talk given by Benoît Drouillat, President, *designers interactifs*, France’s leading professional organization for the digital design industry, at the Cumulus Digital Culture Session on May 19, 2011 in Paris, France.

France, with its iconic designers, high-quality academic programs, and dynamic design industry, has carved out a rather unique position in the digital design world. In France, digital design is firmly anchored in the country’s strong culture of decorative and applied arts. However, digital design suffers from the same confused semantics as the field of design as a whole.

France’s technology-driven design culture is deeply rooted in engineering, making it difficult for non-technological innovation to emerge. Information Designer Giuseppe Attoma aptly stated that “La France [est un] pays où l’histoire industrielle a produit des modèles de conception centrés sur les technologies plutôt que sur les utilisateurs et les services.”

Even the French government has acknowledged the challenges surrounding digital and interaction design. First, there is a general lack of understanding of the field. Second, interaction design is struggling to be seen as a legitimate profession. Unless these hurdles are overcome, it will be impossible to assess the impact of interaction design on France’s digital economy.

In France, design, unlike architecture, is an unregulated profession. The official title “designer” simply does not exist. And because there is no official title, there is no professional or standards-setting body to defend the title or to ensure that professionals practicing in the field are informed of their rights and meet their legal responsibilities.

And yet, digital design is far from marginal in France. It is growing steadily among a certain population of practitioners, but this growth is undoubtedly hindered by the business world’s cloudy perception of who digital designers are and what they do.

An invisible profession (?)

Interaction design began to emerge as a profession in France around a decade ago. However, the factors driving the demand for interaction design have not been clearly identified, and professionals in the industry have so far failed to clearly articulate the potential strategic advantages of interaction design – which, in any case, does not officially exist in the French economy.

For the time being, the French government ministries in charge of areas like industry and culture have not put this problem on their agendas or offered any solutions. In fact, there is no comprehensive public policy to address the needs of the design profession.

Design – and thus interaction design – are also poorly represented in the official list of occupations published by the French national statistics agency, INSEE. The list uses a rather broad definition of software design, and includes web pages and specialized design activities in two separate sub-categories—but makes no mention of digital design.

In September 2010 three French trade organizations (l’Alliance Française des Designers, APCI, and *designers interactifs*) lobbied to maintain the English loanwords design and designer distinct from the original French words conception and concepteur in one of the sub-categories of the list. And this was not just a matter of semantics. The nuance is important in the profession; designers and concepteurs do not necessarily work in the same fields or use the same approaches. And the classification of a profession in the official list is important symbolically, both in terms of improving recognition of the profession and of building unity within the profession.

A profusion of terms and the search for a common vocabulary

Overall, interaction design in France is suffering from the lack of a common vocabulary, both to communicate with professionals in other fields like marketing and engineering, and within the profession itself. According to philosopher and designer Stéphane Vial, this lack of a common language is evidence of the many approaches to interaction design in France and the difficulties establishing shared values. From interaction design and design for interaction to digital design and user experience design, the profusion of terms is more a reflection of divergences in strategy than in theory.

Since 2009 *designers interactifs* has published a glossary of digital design terms and regularly holds talks and other events to foster the emergence of a clearer, more coherent professional identity.

Diverse yet fragmented degree and certificate programs

In France, digital design is gradually becoming an attractive career option for growing numbers of design school graduates. The number of degree and certificate programs has increased considerably since the early 2000s but remains particularly fragmented.

Digital design is at the crossroads of several different academic and business cultures. Digital design occupations like Interactive Artistic Director take their titles from the world of advertising, which, incidentally, has made inroads into the digital design field. Digital design is taught at fine and applied arts schools, at design schools, and at universities.

A number of initial degree programs are offered, and they reflect the complex cultures of the creative industries in France:

• Public and private design schools that have gradually added minors and concentrations in digital design, web design, augmented reality, motion design, and usability.
• Established public and private applied arts schools that have expanded or diversified their programs by working closely with the profession.
• Specialized schools that emerged with the multimedia boom in the late 1990s; these schools often offer highly professional programs and also work closely with the profession.
• Universities and Tech Institutes that jumped on the ICT bandwagon in the mid-2000s; these schools offer Bachelor’s and Master’s programs built on relevant theoretical and practical content. Because of the low cost of enrolment, a broader population can now access careers in digital design, a field where graduates often enjoy high career placement rates.

Emerging programs and academic research

Increasingly, interaction design studies at French design schools are part of full-length degree or certificate programs. And schools are also getting more involved in research. France’s first interaction-oriented design programs date back a decade.

Today, four French design schools are setting the example by combining research, technology, and partnerships with business and industry to stay at the cutting edge of emerging applications like natural and tangible interfaces, robotics, and virtual reality, where design will play a major role.

For example, following three years of exploration in the field of interaction design, Strate Collège Designers recently founded Strate Collège Research. The new institute will foster designer-led applied research in collaboration with engineers, sociologists, and other researchers from the social sciences and humanities.

In September, Nantes Atlantique Design School, whose « design d’interactivité » program is turning ten this year, founded READi (director: Grégoire Cliquet), a laboratory for applied research in interaction design.

At the initiative of designer Jean-Louis Fréchin, design school ENSCI founded a digital design workshop (Atelier de design numérique, or ADN), which will focus on research through the creative process. The idea is to delve into a research topic as deeply as possible from a theoretical standpoint, and then try to develop an appropriate response through a design project based on possible future usage scenarios. Like many design schools, ENSCI uses a cross-disciplinary approach bringing together a number of engineering and design professions.

Another example comes from ENSAD (École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs), which founded the EnsadLab in 2007. The lab looks at the links between innovation and design through around ten research programs, including ones on interactive environments, virtual environments, and mobility. Of the ten programs, seven are directly linked to interaction design.

Design market taking form

The French digital design market is difficult to study. The main professionals operating in the industry have realized that they must in essence create their own market and continuously educate clients to try to clear up some of the semantic confusion that surrounds the profession.

According to a 2010 study on the design economy commissioned by the French Ministry of Industry, digital design is the third-leading type of design used by businesses. In-house and outsourced design services are both growing, but their role in a company’s overall business strategy remains unclear.

According to the same study, just 18% of design firms limit their services to a single type of design. More than half of all design firms offer digital design services (55%), which account for 55% of their revenue. In France, service design, which is offered by just 11% of design firms, remains marginal for those firms that do offer it. Most design firms are located in Paris (60%) followed by Rhône-Alpes (7%), Île-de-France (4%), Pays de la Loire (3%), and Nord-Pas-de-Calais (3%). Most designers (39%) work at firms with fewer than five employees. The average budget for a digital design project is €10,692, a business’ second-largest design expense after office or retail space design.

An optimistic employment outlook

Although interaction design is gaining in notoriety, employment remains focused on web design. Just 5% of the designers that responded to the *designers interactifs* survey stated interaction design as their profession.
There is currently no data available on the number of digital designers in France.

Designers also work in an extremely broad range of professional situations that include interactive communication agencies, interactive advertising agencies, design studios, interaction design agencies, and mobile application development firms. Many others are freelance or hold in-house design positions at companies like voyages-sncf.com, Louis Vuitton, Parfums Christian Dior, SFR, and Orange Labs.

French businesses that hire interaction designers are difficult to identify. That said, young, innovative businesses appear to have a solid understanding of the profession.

According to the 2010 *designers interactifs* survey, most designers are employed by agencies (48%) or are freelance (32%), but the number of in-house designers is also on the rise (20%). More women are also entering the digital design professions (34% in 2010). The profession remains young, with 56% of designers under the age of 30. And the level of education is increasing, with 51% of designers having completed at least four-years of post-secondary study.

A McKinsey report on the impact of the Internet on the French economy identifies the Internet as a major contributor to the country’s economy both in terms of employment and GDP. According to the report, the Internet’s contribution to France’s GDP was estimated at €60 billion in 2009 (3.2%), and the Internet accounted for 1.15 million jobs in 2010 – that’s 25% of economic growth and net job creation from 2009 to 2010. France’s “digital potential” is expected to generate 5.5% of GDP and create 450,000 direct jobs by 2015. If you compare these figures to design use rates in France (40%), digital design should offer high potential for employment in the future.

Interaction design in France: what works

France’s design schools, practitioners, and organizations like APCI and *designers interactifs* are taking the lead, and are today shaping a vibrant interaction design industry with a number of strengths.

France’s interaction design industry is perceived as holistic and cross-disciplinary, bringing together the arts, the humanities, and industry (according to digital designer Jean-Louis Fréchin). It is also seen as more conceptual than interaction design in English-speaking countries. The industry is also very active, running a full slate of lectures, meetings, and other events.

While France’s interaction design industry is little-known internationally, foreign firms have demonstrated a clear affinity for French-born and French-educated designers.