Within France Telecom's R&D, a special human sciences laboratory ( SUSI , or Sociology of Uses and Statistic Information Processing) employs about forty fulltime researchers and twenty Ph.D. students, as well as sociologists, statistic information processing experts, linguists and ethnologists. Its role is to map the state of practices and identify trends in use. The lab's main missions are:

• Building a picture for France Telecom of customers' usage in all areas (personal, home and professional),

• Mapping general trends by identifying disruptive uses in relation to preceding technologies and by studying the issue of customer relations,

• Spreading a use-based culture inside and outside the Group through media such as the France Telecom Observatory (see box), which presents trends in the use of telecommunication tools, in the form of societal surveys,

• Developing and integrating innovative technologies for keeping track of usage, from traffic analysis in the IS (going through data), to analysing interactions recorded on video, as well as more classic social-science methods,

• Developing, testing and distributing techniques, methods or processes for solving certain difficult aspects of statistic information processing in a generic way.

A series of tailored methods
To assess the state of practices and identify trends in users' use of services marketed by the France Telecom group, researchers make use of several methods, separately or in combination:

• On the one hand, for everything that has to do with the "ethnographic" approach of human activity and interaction with machines, the focus is on video or sound recordings of what the individual does with his mobile or fixed phone or Internet. Volunteers for instance wear video glasses in order to observe their movements and actions while using a service.

• On the other hand, users are regularly interviewed to understand how they use their communication tools. An analysis can then be made of how these practices fit in with the home or professional environment. These interviews are usually supplemented by ethnographic observations, for instance analysing the mail box, to evaluate direct communication.

• On a larger scale, quantitative surveys are conducted to obtain a picture representative of users on a market level (French as well as European population).

• Lastly, by traffic analysis (phone or Internet), done with probes with the users' permission, objective data can be obtained on the regularity and duration of calls, the nature of Internet connections (Web, communication, shopping…), time spent on messages, the type of contacts most frequently called, etc.

To detect emerging uses and identify usage trends, avant-garde sections of the population, so-called "technophiles", are observed. In the OUT (Observatory for Usage Trends), these usage surveys are combined with other information gathered in the Group; the results are illustrated by "usage trend reports" that can be used to facilitate and stimulate innovation in France Telecom's R&D and Business Units. Currently, surveys are being done on voice interaction, the impact of image on interpersonal communication (MMS, video calling for private individuals, video calling in companies), on environmental intelligence (M2M), especially the way in which the user accepts these new environments (machine intelligence on exploded terminals).

But the role of R&D's SUSI lab is also to get a better understanding of the ways in which users adjust to a technical tool. This is a very important objective, since it often appears that services are rarely used in the way that the designers had intended. SMS was for instance created as a communication tool between technicians. Its simplicity however gave it a wide appeal for the mass public.

Complementary poles
A specific team attached to the SUSI lab is responsible for uniting skills within the Group in the field of customer knowledge and relations (implementing multi-channel contact technologies and strategies, developments and surveys that could contribute to improving the efficiency of the Group's customer-relation processes, etc).

A research pole for usage (sociology, ergonomics, quality, creativity) is also joint to this lab: it focuses its work on human and social sciences (economics, ergonomics, ethnology, linguistics, sociology, etc.) in aid of service innovation. The aim in acquiring advanced knowledge on users and usage is to anticipate emerging dynamics in communication practices, develop innovative instruments for marketing, imagine service concepts and evaluate their quality, co-design interfaces, contents and services together with user communities, and interpret large transformations in information society.

France Telecom Observatory Founded in 2002, the France Telecom Observatory is a tool for the Group's brand services, destined for the mass public. It enables France Telecom to let the public share in its expertise on links between telecommunications and society. The objective is to enable everyone to understand lifestyle transformations through the observation of communication practices. The Observatory endeavours to reveal underlying and often unexpected evolutions in our social relations, both professional and personal. It thereby contributes to the debate by completing dominating perceptions and opinions regarding telecommunication uses. Several special theme-based reports have already been released on subjects as diverse as "Birth of the first child", "Multimedia devices", "Web chats and SMS", or "Papy-boomers" (so-called "oldies" or the ageing "baby-boom" generation). Leaning on the work of sociologists in the Group, the France Telecom Observatory brings unequalled expertise in the knowledge of use and the effects of new technologies on interpersonal relations. The reference documents that result from this work, are aimed at the mass public and help give France Telecom a dimension of responsibility for the evolutions in society to which it contributes. They also aim at answering to the public's often implicit expectations regarding the relationship between new technologies, usage and attitudes in everyday life.

Knowing the customer's perception
The Quality of Perceived Value (Qualité de la Valeur Perçue or QVP) lab of France Telecom's R&D has an activity that complements that of the SUSI laboratory. Aiming at a better understanding of customer perception, this unit's main objective is in fact to give a better definition of the correlation that exists between technical problems in products and those perceived by users.

It is manned by some fifty researchers divided between Rennes and Lannion, with skills ranging from technical to human sciences or market-related. More specifically, the laboratory employs experts on media quality, for voice, image and sound in general, as well as specialists in man/machine interfaces. It also includes metrology experts who "quantify" customer perception, and a unit that assesses the relative importance, in relation to the competition, of certain service functions, for which man/machine interface can be a highly differentiating aspect.

More generally speaking, researchers' activities in this France Telecom laboratory are divided into three broad categories:

• Firstly, detecting and analysing emerging innovations, with the overall customer approach taken into account. The market analysis includes a scouting phase (media, Internet, etc.). Using this data, they determine the potential of a new medium, analyse its chances of success on the French market, etc. For instance, the laboratory is currently working on a new generation of handsets recently rolled out in Korea by One Phone. These bi-modal phones enable you to make and receive calls outside in mobile mode, and to do the same at home, in fixed mode, with a dedicated number. Also in Korea, an example of converging uses between Internet and mobile phones is catching the laboratory's attention. It consists of extending the functionalities of a network game (close to SIMs), with a virtual world made up by the user, who can be notified on his mobile phone of changes that take place in "his" world when he is not connected to the Web.

• Secondly, the laboratory participates in the detecting and finalising of solutions that make uses simpler and more flexible, especially by providing perceived-quality expertise on new solutions for interaction with telecom services: media, multimedia and multimodality. The main objective is to anticipate customers' feelings by giving information on products' potential qualities and drawbacks compared to the competition (often the best on the international market analysed in the previous category). The methods used consist mainly of qualitative tests and user trials. At the moment, the laboratory is also looking at multimodality, especially for mobile phones: Why not offer customers the possibility to reply to an SMS vocally - very simple and flexible. This way the user can choose the reply mode most suited to his environment.

• Lastly, the laboratory gives France Telecom's Business Units, research labs and decision makers a clearer perspective by contributing to the definition of future services and new value positions. This activity, more geared towards research, helps to make usage more flexible for the customer and simplify his relationship with his products. The accent falls on interfaces and service processes, but also training the user to use the interface. On average, for instance, a customer uses only 20% of the functionalities that his mobile phone offers. Solutions therefore have to be found to push up this percentage and thereby increase traffic. One possible solution would be to make the mobile phone self-adaptive, which means that the phone gradually proposes new functionalities with which the user can become familiar. Another current line of research is self-care, in other words an increase of interactive tools that allow the customer to go and check his consumption level and bills on his Orange, Wanadoo or France Telecom accounts, through a unified portal