A harmonized, user-centered, multi-lingual referential for ICT devices and services

Abstract

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become central to the life of all citizens in the European Union. A vast range of powerful devices (e.g., mobile phones, smart phones) and services (e.g., media services, societal services) are proposed in order to foster exchanges, provide access to a wealth of information and improve the quality of life. However, the expected benefits – in particular those of societal relevance - materialize only when the features proposed by the devices and services may be easily understood and used by all users, including those with learning and cognitive disabilities. When users are not familiar with a new functionality and its technical background, they may be confused by an obscure and not harmonized terminology. As a result, they may be reluctant to use ICT devices and services and miss their potential benefits.The Design-for-All approach presented is addressing the provision of a harmonized terminology suggesting terms to denote more than 500 basic and commonly used ICT features in 19 European languages with a dual objective. Firstly, it is intended as a referential for the end users, taking into account elderly users as well as those with cognitive, physical, or sensory variations. Secondly, it is offered as a guideline to support the users (in particular, the industrial stakeholders) in the provision of harmonized documentation. The work has been undertaken by the “Human Factors” Technical Committee (TC HF) of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI). An ETSI Guide (EG 203 499) has been developed with a two steps approach: a first version has been published in 2019 covering English, French, German, Italian and Spanish; a second version including 14 more languages (Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, and Swedish) is to be published in the first half of 2022. EG 203 499 will address all the languages spoken in the EU by more than 5 million citizens and will be freely available.The proposed poster will outline the benefits of the proposed ETSI Guide and provide examples of the resulting terminologies together with the methodology used for developing them in the ETSI EG.This work is co-funded by the European Commission (EC) of the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and conducted within ETSI.

Keywords: User-centered Design, Terminology Referential, Human Factors

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100882