Trust by design: guidelines to improve confidence in a world of communication. The case of telecommunication industry.

According to sociologist Russell Hardin, we'd joined the age of distrust in the sense that we interact with more people whom we do not trust, with people whom we trust (Hardin, 2006). If the notion of trust suggests that we... [ view full abstract ]

According to sociologist Russell Hardin, we'd joined the age of distrust in the sense that we interact with more people whom we do not trust, with people whom we trust (Hardin, 2006). If the notion of trust suggests that we defer to someone abandoning himself to his benevolence (Origgi, 2008, p. 8), trust appears as the attribute of a relationship with the other one (person, institution or organization) or self (self-confidence). These "others" represent then "trusted devices" participating to reduce the uncertainty in which we swim (Quéré, 2005, p. 188).

In this exploratory paper we question the ability of firms to address the theme of trust and translate into socio-technical devices (products and services) or intangible activities (such as design or communication process). According to the variation introduced by Luhmann (2001), we will limit our observations to the case of "decided trust" oriented towards the other person and involving "always an element of risk" because the trust would aim "to reduce uncertainty and, as a consequence, risk sentiment "(Karsenty, 2011).

We will address this issue in terms of "communication-uncertainty" operating a distinction in the field of communication, along three axes: the variability uncertainty (related to the inherent variability of things), the epistemic uncertainty ambiguous or not (due to the imperfection of our knowledge) and the scale uncertainty (in touch with the imperfection of our models of representations) (Camin, 2014).

By placing us from the point of view of the industry of telecommunications, we shall analyze how the concept of confidence is translated in the design of technical objects, from concrete and innovative examples borrowed from the domain of the safety and more particularly the domain of the identity because " without first verifying identity, confidence cannot be established " (Cofta, on 2007). The approach by the "communication-uncertainty" will lead us to propose a draft of conceptual model, exceeding the simple question of the deficit of information.