Topics in Usability
Standards and Guidelines

ISO and ANSIPlatform StandardsWeb Software WritingCorporateSpecific Applications

Related Pages:
Java Guidelines
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ISO and ANSI Standards

• ISO: International Standards Organization
• ANSI: American National Standards Institute

Standards on Usability
The three most-cited standards are listed here, but there are many others on various aspects of usability, design and human factors. ISO 9241 includes the often-quoted definition of usability in  Part 11: Guidance on Usability

• ISO 13407 - Human-Centred Design Processes for Interactive System

• ISO 9241 - Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Visual Display Terminals

• ANSI/INCITS-354 Common Industry Format (CIF) for Reporting Usability Results

Standards Bookshops

• TechStreet
• NSSN: A National Resource for Global Standards

Other Resources

• IBM's involvement in user interface standardization (includes brief descriptions of these standards)
• International Standards on Usability - on UsabilityNet 
• The Bluffer's Guide to ISO 9241 - by David Travis, UserFocus

Platform Standards

• IBM User Interface Design Principles

• Microsoft User Interface Guidelines

• Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines

• Lotus Notes Best Practices Guide

• Sun Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist

  
  

Web Design Guidelines

NCI - usability.gov Research-Based Guidelines

NCI Announces New Research-Based Web Design Guidelines for Improving Health Information Web Sites
by James Mathews (from Usability Interface, August 2001)

Yale C/AIM Web Style Guide
Also available in print.

IBM HCI Web Design Guidelines

Bandwidth Conservation Society
Guidelines for developing fast, small graphics, including an interactive comparison of different file formats.

Software Application Design Guidelines

Weinschenk, Jamar and Yeo GUI Design Essentials, Wiley, 1996

Guidelines for Designing User Interface Software - Smith and Mosier, MITRE
Dating back to 1986, these guidelines have become classics. They were prepared for the Air Force, and are a compilation of some of the best material available at the time. (PDF version)

Graphical User Interface Style Guide - ISII's sample style guide, " based on IBM CUA, Microsoft "The Windows® Interface Guidlines for Software Design", and years of experience"

Writing Style Guides

American Psychological Association Style Guide
Links to several different resources for APA style and citation rules

Good Documents
A web-site that discusses how to create good business documents in the linked, on-screen environment of Intranets and the Internet from Dan Bricklin and Trellix.

W3C Style Guide for Writing Online Documents

Corporate Interface Guidelines

These guidelines were written for a specific corporate or government environment, though they may also be examples of good general guidelines.

Ameritech Graphical User Interface Standards and Design Guidelines http://www.ameritech.com:1080/corporate/testtown/library/standard/std-guix.html
Now available only in the WayBack Machine Internet Archive

Guidelines for Specific Applications

Some guides address a specific type of application. While they may include general design principles they document the application of those principles in a limited set of interfaces.

Earth Observing System Data Information System (EOSDIS) Core System (ECS)
This is an example of a style guide intended to ensure consistency across a group of similar applications written in a single development environment. It is available only for download as a PDF or PostScript file.