Usability Standards Meeting at IEA2009

Our joint MD Tom Stewart will chair a session on International Standards at the 17th World Congress on Ergonomics (IEA2009) which is being held in Beijing this August.  

The session is jointly organised by the International Ergonomics Association (IEA) Technical Committee on Work with Computing Systems (TC WWCS) and the International Standards Organisation Sub Committee on the Ergonomics of Human System Interaction (ISO TC159/SC4).

This session offers an ideal opportunity to observe an International Standards Committee at work and to learn the latest information about a number of important ergonomics and usability standards.  In a unique collaboration between the IEA and ISO, the committee (ISO/TC 159/SC4 – The Ergonomics of Human-System Interaction) will hold its plenary meeting in public during the IEA Congress, starting after the Keynote Session on 11 August and finishing on the afternoon of 12 August.

Although the whole meeting will be open for members of the Congress to observe, the opening session of the meeting will be an update from each of the Working Groups in this important International Standards Committee.  This session, jointly organised with IEA TC on WWCS will provide a detailed and up to date overview of the work of the whole committee.  It is expected that most Convenors will attend in person and describe the past and present activities of their Working Groups in developing ergonomics standards.  There should also be representatives from ISO and the Secretariat.  The Working Groups are as follows:

• WG1 Fundamentals of controls and signalling methods, Convenor Sadao Horino, Japan
• WG2 Visual display requirements, Convenor Floris van Nes, Netherlands
• WG3 Control, workplace and environmental requirements, Convenor Ahmet Cakir, Germany
• WG5 Software ergonomics and human-computer dialogue, Convenor Susan Harker, UK
• WG6 Human-centred design for interactive systems, Convenor Tom Stewart, UK
• WG8 Ergonomics design of control centres, Convenor John Wood, UK
• WG9 Haptic and tactile interactions, Convenor Jim Carter, Canada
• WG10 Accessible design for consumer products, Convenor Shigeru Yamauchi, Japan
• JWG Common Industry Formats for Usability Reports (with ISO/IEC JTC1 SC7), SC4 Co-convenor Tomas Geis, Germany

You can find details of the conference and how to register at: http://www.iea2009.org/. The standards section of our website contains up to date information on international standards in usability and ergonomics.

Last updated: December, 2009

---