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Vol.28 No.2, April 1996
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The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) has begun the process of forming a canvass committee to review a new draft standard, ANSI/HFES 200. This draft standard, currently titled Ergonomic Requirements for Software User Interfaces, reflects and extends the technical content of Parts 12-17 of ISO Standard 9241, Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Visual Display Terminals. Parts 12-17 address the following topics:
In addition to these topics, ANSI/HFES 200 incorporates new material on color usage, voice i/o, and software accessibility.
Membership in the ANSI/HFES 200 Canvass Committee is open to software producers, software users, or other parties with a general interest in software who believe they may be materially and directly affected by this standard. Canvass Committee members will have the opportunity to comment on the draft standard when it is released for public review, currently planned for Q2 1997.
Companies, organizations, or individuals who are interested in joining the ANSI/HFES 200 Canvass Committee are invited to submit a letter of interest to:
Ms. Lynn Strother,
Executive Director Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
PO Box 1369
Santa Monica, CA 90406-1369, USA.
Letters should identify the company or organization the writer is representing (if any), the nature of their business, and the reason why they believe they may be materially and directly affected by the standard. Note that companies and organizations should identify one individual who will serve as their point-of-contact for receiving documents from HFES and sending consolidated comments back to HFES during the formal review period for ANSI/HFES 200.
I recently read that it is possible to order copies of ISO standards via the internet. Curious, I proceeded to work my way through a number of standards-related web pages, hoping to find a quick and easy way to order copies of Parts 10-17 (the so-called "software parts") of ISO 9241. I started with the following URL: http://www.iso.ch/infoe/order.html.
This brought up a page titled How to place your order, which contained the following information:
How to place your order
Orders for ISO International Standards and other ISO publications should be addressed to the ISO member bodies (non-USA users, if subscribing to Internet from a USA-based provider, should consult the member list for ordering ISO standards in their country) which are normally the primary ISO sales agents, or for customers in countries where there is no member body, to the ISO Central Secretariat.
In order to avoid any mistakes when preparing orders for standards or standard-type documents, it is important to accurately quote the standard's reference number as given in the ISO Catalogue under International Standards. For standards published in several parts, you should specify the number of the required part(s). If not, all parts of the standard will be provided.
Publications other than standards and standard-type documents can be ordered by mentioning either the title of the publication or the ISBN number (see Information publications and Standards handbooks).
I followed the link to International Standards, which brought up a search field. I entered the term "ergonomics", and got back a list of 64 documents, including the following:
Armed with the full names and numbers of the parts I wished to order, I returned to the ISO page where I began. Since the page instructed readers to address orders to the appropriate ISO member body, I followed the link to ISO member bodies. This brought up a list of all countries that are members of ISO and their national standards organizations, from which I selected USA (ANSI). At long last, I reached a page with information about how to contact ANSI, as follows:
Unfortunately, this page contained no direct links to any ANSI pages. I appeared to be out of luck.USA (ANSI)
Address: American National Standards Institute
11 West 42nd Street 13th floor
New York, N.Y. 10036Telephone: + 1 212 642 49 00
Telefax: + 1 212 398 00 23
Internet: smazza@ansi.org
To make a long story short, I decided to start over at the top-level ANSI page, using a URL I had learned from another source (http://www.ansi.org). I explored several different pathways within the ANSI web pages, looking for information about how to order ISO standards from ANSI.
Still thinking there must be some way to order ISO standards on-line, I finally reached a page informing me that on-line ordering of ANSI standards is "coming soon." I assume that this message also applies to on-line ordering of ISO standards through ANSI. So, for the time being, I must still place a call or send a fax to ANSI to order ANSI and ISO standards. But I'll also keep checking those web pages, just to make sure.
Pat Billingsley,
Principal Consultant,
The Merritt Group,
82 South Street,
PO Box 728,
Williamsburg, MA 01096-0728, USA.
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