27

When the first project for the computerization of civilian air traffic control was launched in 1961, a team of psychologists was assigned to work with the engineers in charge of developing the new system, to help adapt it to the specific working conditions of air traffic controllers. This collaborative effort was instrumental in forging the early principles of computer ergonomics, which were applied to the CAUTRA program (for automated air traffic coordination). André Bisseret’s team, working within the INRIA (Computing and Automation Research Institute) as from 1969, discovered the many complications arising from interdisciplinary work with a mistrustful computing community that regarded the arrival of a team of psychologists within their sphere of competence as an incomprehensible intrusion. The conflicts, incomprehension and missed opportunities of the time did not prevent ergonomics research from developing around the concepts of users and interfaces, or from offering answers to the questions and anxieties that computers gave rise to among the general public as from the 1970s.