ISO 9241-12:1998
Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs) - Part 12: Presentation of information

Standard No.

ISO 9241-12:1998

Release Date

1998

Published By

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

Latest

ISO 9241-12:1998

Scope

This part of ISO 9241 provides ergonomic recommendations for the presentation of information and specific properties of presented information on text-based and graphical user interfaces used for office tasks. It provides recommendations for the design and evaluation of visual presentation of information including coding techniques. These recommendations can be utilized throughout the design process (for example as guidance for designers during design, as a basis for heuristic evaluation, as guidance for usability testing). The coverage of colour is limited to ergonomic recommendations for the use of colour for highlighting and categorizing information (see ISO 9241-8 for additional recommendations for the use of colour). This part of ISO 9241 does not address auditory presentation of information. Interface design depends upon the task, the user, the environment and the available technology. Consequently, this part of ISO 9241 cannot be applied without a knowledge of the design and the context of use of the interface, and it is not intended to be used as a prescriptive set of rules to be applied in its entirety. Rather, it assumes that the designer has proper information available concerning task and user requirements and understands the use of available technology (this may require consultation with a qualified ergonomics professional as well as empirical testing with real users). NOTE 1 Although this is an International Standard, some of the conditional recommendations are based on Latin-based language usage and may not apply, or may need to be modified, for use with a different language. For example, in right-to-left languages those conditional recommendations oriented towards left-to-right reading may need to be modified and adapted. In applying those conditional recommendations that assume a specific language base (e.g. alphabetic ordering of coding information, items in a list), care should be taken concerning the intent of this part of ISO 9241 when translation is required to a different language. NOTE 2 Providing users with the capability to alter the interface to suit their own needs has become a popular approach to software interface design. This is often a desirable feature of the interface. However, providing users with customization capabilities is not an acceptable substitute for an economically designed interface (e.g. default windows, colour settings). Note that customization of the presentation of information may result in deviations from this part of ISO 9241.

ISO 9241-12:1998 history

• 1998 ISO 9241-12:1998 Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs) - Part 12: Presentation of information