Table of Contents:

Definition and Overview

1. What Is the Human-Machine Interface?

2. Usability: Why Is It Important?

3. Usability Engineering Principle #1: Know Your Users

4. Principle #2: Involve Users Early and Continuously

5. Principle #3: Rapid and Frequent Iteration Toward Measurable Usability Targets

6. The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: Requirements Gathering and Rapid Prototyping

7. The Usability Engineering Lifestyle: Usability Evaluation

8. Relevant International Standards

9. Where to Find out More

Self-Test

Glossary

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International Standards Organization (ISO)

• ISO 9241 "Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Visual Display Terminals," produced by ISO Technical Committee 159, Signals and Controls Group 4, Working Group 5 (TG159/SC4/WG5); covers many areas from task, keyboard, and workplace requirements, to guidance on dialogue design, menu design, and the use of color; part has been implemented in European legislation (Directive 87/391/EEC)
• ISO 14915 standard on multimedia, also produced by TC159/5C4/WG5; covers design of controls and navigation, media combination/individual media requirements, and domain-specific multimedia aspects

ISO–lEG Joint Technical Committee 1 is a combined activity of ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission. Working Group 9 of Subcommittee 18 is developing standards in keyboard layout, dialogue interaction, and symbols. Its work includes the following:

• ISO–lEG 11581 "Graphical Symbols on Screens"
• ISO–lEG 13714 "User Interface to Telephone-Based Services—Voice Messaging Applications"
• ISO–lEG 11580 "Names and Descriptions of Objects and Actions Commonly Used in the Office Environment"

More information may be found at the ISO Web site http://www.iso.ch.

American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

• ANSI/HFES 200 "Ergonomic Requirements for Software User Interfaces" Extends ISO 9241, including a chapter on guidelines for making user interfaces usable for people with disabilities of different kinds, written in response to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• The Information Infrastructure Standards Panel (IISP) was set up under ANSI to accelerate the development of standards that will be crucial to the building of the United States' national information infrastructure and the taking of a global perspective.
• ANSI T1M1.5 provides technical contributions on "Telecommunications Architecture, Interfaces, and Protocols" to Study Group 10 of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
• ITU

More information may be found at the ANSI Web site http://www.ansi.org.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

W3G is responsible for defining Internet-specific standards, including the HTML hypertext formatting language.

More information may be found at the W3C Web site http://www.w3.org.