Resources: Guidelines and Methods

International Standards

There are several useful international standards on usability-related topics.

Why are standards important?

Standards are a formal agreement on a specific, detailed topic. They allow us to codify best practices or a set of requirements, and share them across industries, national boundaries and disciplines.

Some standards focus on processes, describing principles and making recommendations for how to achieve a results. Others are detailed specifications, and contain requirements that must be met. Both are useful in establishing a user-centered design process or in evaluating the usability of a product.

Getting copies of standards

Standards are generally sold by the organizations that publish them, or by a national standards organization.

The easiest way to locate a standards document is to look it up by number (for example, ISO 13407).

Some sources of standards:

• ISO - International Standards Organization
• ANSI - American National Standards Institute
• Techstreet - an online bookstore specializing in standards

• Human-Centred Design Process
  (ISO 13407)
  This standard is the basis for many UCD methodologies. It defines a general process for including human-centered activities throughout a development life-cycle.
• Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Video Display Terminals
  (ISO 9241)
  This standard is the source of one of the commonly cited definitions of usability.
• Common Industry Format for Reporting Usability Results
  (ISO/IEC 25062:2006 )
  This standard contains a template for formal usability reports.
• Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C (WAI)
  This initiative is the source for the best web standards, and is also the basis for many national regulations.

For a complete list, see International standards for usability on UsabilityNet. The standards in this list are categorized by whether they concern:

• the use of the product
• the user interface and interaction
• the process used to develop the product
• the capability of an organisation to apply user centered design