CAW N 09
Japan's Position on the Technical
Direction of User Interfaces
Source: National Body of Japan
Status: National Body contribution
to be considered at the JTC1 Cultural Adaptability Workshop in Ottawa,
Canada on 1998-01-20 to 22
As per JTC 1 Ottawa Plenary Resolution
16 and accompanying resolutions on the comments to JTC 1 N4780 in JTC 1
N5015, the National Body of Japan re-submits its position on the Technical
Direction of user interfaces as follows.
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Although "User Interfaces" is one of
the most important information technology
areas, the feasibility or validity of standardization in this
area is a different story. In general, the
appropriateness of a user interface
is dependent on various factors such as its target application
area, a user's level of proficiency, taste,
physical condition (handicapped or
not), cultural background and so forth. In other words, "User Interfaces"
are essentially application dependent. Therefore,
JNB (Japan National Body) considers that it is not possible to
develop generic standard user interfaces without
defining their application domain.
This is evidenced by
the fact that there has been no success in the past in the attempts to
standardize general purpose keyboards. It is
also quite unlikely that Microsoft
icon sets, for example, will be adopted as an International
Standard. In the more sophisticated user interface
areas which involve intelligent
dialogue technologies with help and error recovery functions, it
will far more be difficult to reach any consensus
status in the near future.
-
JNB also considers that standardization
on the matters related to ergonomics
or safety aspects of human interfaces such as keyboard ergonomics
should be handled by the existing specialized
TCs and not by JTC 1.
-
What JTC 1 should deal with in this
area is the standardization of the interfaces
for interconnection which enable users to select the most
appropriate user interfaces for their own applications
(e.g. standard interface
for keyboard connection). This subject is basically the matters of standardizing
the Interfaces for Interconnection
of Equipments, SSI (Systems Software Interface) or API
(Application Program Interface) and thus should
be taken care of by each existing
specialized SC. JNB believes that JTC 1 does not need any
independent SC for this subject.
-
In conclusion, although standardization
of "User Interfaces" is feasible for
a specific domain, it is essentially not possible to standardize them in
a general form as generic standards in JTC
1. The standardization of application
dependent "User Interfaces" should be handled
by each application specific TC
for a specific domain and not by JTC 1.
Therefore, JNB recommends that JTC
1 dispose the User Interface group as an
Ad Hoc
WG directly reporting to JTC 1 for the time being, and thoroughly review
and reexamine the projects and the work items
for this group again to make a final
decision on whether JTC 1 should keep this group as a standing WG or
not in the future.