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Standards & Guidelines for HCI

There are a number of recognised standards for usability and accessibility that apply to system design. Some are consensual statements of best-practice guidelines, some are legal requirement. The degree to which this law can be, and is, enforced often depends on the country in question, and on the nature of the system. A company providing systems for its employees is more liable than a service provider offering a website for public use. Public sector providers are absolutely required to adopt a number of the standards listed here.

International Standards Organisation (ISO)

Based in Geneva, the International Standards Organisation (ISO) is a non-governmental network of the national standards institutes of 146 countries (including the British Standards Institute). Its standards are intended to provide a reference framework - a common technological language. They are completely voluntary, and simply allow businesses and consumers to select from suppliers and products that work to a recognised, consensual standard.

The ISO publish a number of standards that apply to HCI.

• ISO 9241 Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals
  Covers very detailed requirements for worksystems that have visual display terminals. Examples of the topics covered are screen layout, dialogs and error management. It does not apply directly to newer, handheld screen design. Section 11 is the broadest, and is applicable across multiple platforms. It defines usability as “effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction”. Measurements are offered that allow systems to be built to meet minimum criteria in these three areas.
• ISO 13407 Human-centred design processes for interactive systems
  Specifies a best-practice methodology for integrating user-centred design activities into a development cycle. It describes how system developers must define the context of use, specify stakeholder requirements, prototype solutions and evaluate against requirements.
• ISO 18529 Ergonomics of human-system interaction - Human-centred lifecycle process descriptions
  Details an organisational maturity model in the form of a list of human-centred design activities. Organisations can be placed on the maturity scale; deficiencies in an organisation's capability to fulfil a user-centred design process can be identified.
• ISO 14915 Software ergonomics for multimedia user-interfaces
  Gives recommendations for controls and media usage for systems such as computer-based training, computer supported co-operative work, kiosk systems and online help.

ISO draft standards, to be completed in the future:

• ISO 16071: Guidance on accessibility for human-computer interfaces
• ISO 16982: Usability methods supporting human-centred design
• ISO 20282: Usability of everyday products

The standards and guidelines applying to accessibility are well defined (and increasingly so).

EU Design for All

The European Union’s “eEurope Initiative” was established in 1999 to “bring the benefits of the Information Society to all Europeans”. It promotes self-regulation and adoption of legislation by organisations in areas including e-commerce, e-content and e-accessibility. The e-accessibility programme focuses on the adoption of the WAI guidelines.

Section 508

This is the US governmental policy that legally requires all Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology be accessible to people with disabilities. It is well enforced, and some see it as a model for legislation in EU countries.

UK e-envoy guidelines

The UK government cabinet office provides guidelines for UK Government websites. They are largely based on the WAI checkpoints.

The UK Disability Discrimination Act (1995)

This government measure is being phased into UK legislation over time. It covers any organisations providing goods, services or facilities for payment or for free. Since October 1999, this includes information provision and information about services (such as that found on websites). The legislation means that anyone that feels they are unfairly discriminated against because a provider hasn’t taken “reasonable action” to cater for a covered disability can take their case against the provider to the civil courts. The Act doesn’t specifically mention websites, but consensus is that they definitely will be liable.

There are no design guidelines offered in conjunction with the DDA. The main proponent of the importance of the legislation is the RNIB, whose guidelines use the WAI checkpoints. It offers a proprietary accreditation.

Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has 450 international member organisations, whose combined remit is to bring the web to its full potential. They create common standards that ensure interoperability and universal access. Its Web Accessibility Initiative is the recognised standard for web content that is accessible to all, regardless of platform or disability.

The initiative produces accessibility guidelines for three domains: web content, authoring tools and user agents (browsers and so on). The first of these - content (i.e. websites) - is covered by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (Published in 1999). These guidelines list a large number of checkpoints for implementation. The checkpoints are divided into three levels of priority, which are derived from the impact on universal accessibility if they are flouted. From this framework, there are three levels of conformance to the guidelines for organisations to be awarded, based on meeting all the checkpoints for each level of priority.

The three levels of conformance are “A”, “Double-A”, and “Triple-A” (“A” being the basic requirement, and “Triple-A” ensuring 100% accessibility).

The guidelines are entirely voluntary. However, they are taken to be best practice for organisations wishing to meet government accessibility requirements, and the incidental business benefits of conformance (through increasing your potential audience) are highly significant.

Other guidelines or standards

Other guidelines of interest are typically style guides and best-practice documents from organisations that supply development frameworks such as IBM, Macromedia, Microsoft and Apple. Academia and private companies also make available (often to buy) their own proprietary best-practice guidelines.