Boy's early
cognitive engineering research was on the first
Glass cockpit, conducted with Airbus and the French aviation authorities (1980–1984). He actively contributed to developing human-centered methods for cockpit design and certification of the first two crewmen cockpits. This early leadership in cognitive engineering led to an award from the French Ministry of Defense that supported part of his work at NASA Ames, where he developed an operation assistant system to enhance the control of the Orbital Refueling System of the
Space Shuttle (1984–1986). He coined the term "intelligent assistant systems" to denote systems that support human operators in safety-critical situations. After two years in France (1987–1988), where he co-founded a start-up company on intelligent assistant systems, Dialogics/Dialexis, he returned to NASA Ames to work on electronic documentation for the
Space Station Freedom (1989–1991). During this period, influenced by
Douglas Englebart, who he worked with for a while, he developed an approach mixing hypertext and machine learning, leading to a system called Computer Integrated Documentation. This work led to a major publication on context-sensitive indexing. Back to France, he was nominated as a leading expert in Information Society and Technology for the
European Commission. He served as an expert for the
European Space Agency to establish the area of human-machine interaction and artificial intelligence (1991–1992). Creating and developing EURISCO, he became a legal expert for aircraft accident investigations (1992–1994). He then started new investigations in cockpit design and produced the Cognitive Function Analysis (CFA) method that was extensively used in industry to design safety-critical systems. Commercial aircraft cockpits became more computerized and generated more studies in human-computer interaction (HCI). He combined HCI and artificial Intelligence approaches not only in the aerospace domain but also in education through the use of software agents. He also created the Group Elicitation Method (GEM) that is used for knowledge elicitation in HCD, and more specifically in
participatory design. He helped restructure Air France at the highest level using GEM. GEM was used in many industrial settings, e.g., Airbus, Nokia, Daimler, Toyota Europe, and in several European Integrated Projects funded by the European Commission. He collaborated on making the Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction with a chapter on knowledge elicitation for the design of software agents. He wrote an introductory text under the auspices of
UNESCO on theories of human cognition to better understand the co-adaptation of people and technology in knowledge management, organizational intelligence and learning, and complexity. He coordinated the French Handbook of Cognitive Engineering: A Human-Computer Interaction and Cognition (Traité d'Ingénierie Cognitive: IHM et Cognition). He then contributed to developing the field of HCI in France and was Co-Founder of AFIHM, the French national equivalent of Association for Computing Machinery SIGCHI. He co-founded the first French
ACM SIGCHI local chapter in Toulouse. He was the first French
CHI paper Co-Chair (Inter-CHI 1993) with
Jakob Nielsen, and was elected Executive Vice Chair of ACM SIGCHI (1995–1999), making him the first European ACM SIGCHI top executive. This service to the HCI community, together with Richard Anderson, contributed to the creation of several local chapters worldwide. Within the human-computer interaction community, he collaborated with colleagues who were influential throughout his professional life, including Jeff Bradshaw,
John Carroll,
Jonathan Grudin,
Don Norman,
Terry Winograd, among many others. He was Chair of the
INCOSE Human-Systems Integration Working Group (2015-2024). In 2021 he was named Fellow of the
International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). This and his contributions to the field of study have made him recognized as a exceptional contributor, Which only 80 individuals have ever been named and he became just the second in France to be recognized as this. talk, USA, 2012 He also founded the HCI-Aero (Human-Computer Interaction in Aerospace) conference series in cooperation with ACM-SIGCHI, the International Ergonomics Association and the Air and Space Academy (Program Chair, 1998-2016). HCI-Aero conferences followed the Human-Machine Interaction and Artificial Intelligence in Aerospace conference series, also created by Boy (1986–1995). HCI-Aero conferences have become a major reference in the field of HCI in Aerospace (full papers are indexed in the ACM Digital Library). He also created the Technical Committee on Human-Factors and Ergonomics of the
International Ergonomics Association (IEA), which he leads since 2008. He scientifically led two main projects regarding safety and human-computer interaction in aeronautics: DIVA, a European project that tried to understand aircrew's awareness of both aircraft internal states and external situations using cognitive function analysis (1998–2001); and PAUSA, a French national project on authority distribution in air traffic management that contributed to the emergence of the Orchestra model for socio-cognitive analysis of multi-agent life-critical systems (2006–2008). This model and the development of HCDi led to the publication of the book, Orchestrating Human-Centered Design where he promotes education and training of leaders who understand technology, organizations, and people (the TOP model). This book presents a humanist approach to design, engineering, and more globally education. With Jen Narkevicius, he proposed a unification of HCD and systems engineering for a better definition of human-systems integration. He extended this HCD research effort on safety-critical systems to nuclear power plant control and management with two of his Ph.D. students. His research work is globally summarized in the discussion on cognitive engineering he had with
Jean Pinet, a former Experimental Test Pilot of Concorde, and his dedication to automation, aerospace and education. Influenced by the work of Hiroshi Iishii, he proposed the shift from automation to tangible interactive objects. He has participated in NASA Blue Sky Study Groups for the "Small Pressurized Rover," (later called the "Lunar Electric Rover"). In 2012, he was the director of the International Space University Space Studies Program FIT/NASA-KSC local organizing committee and the chair of the team project of "what space can contribute to global STEM education." The same year, he gave a TEDx talk on "Human-Centered Design: the STEAM Renaissance". He continues to work on risk-taking and wrote an interdisciplinary book on the topic published by the Air and Space Academy. ==Selected works==