USEM
USEM is a European Commission funded project that aims to promote the empowerment of end users with disabilities and of old age in standardisation activities. Through the process of standardisation the quality and usability of products can be guaranteed. To come to a user-friendly product, users should be participating in the standardisation process. Since products are not automatically user friendly for users with disabilities, their needs should be represented by people with disabilities getting involved in standardisation processes.
Objectives
The USEM project resulted from a call for projects aimed at “Scientific Support to Policy” in the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme. The project aimed at increased participation of disabled or elderly users in European standardisation processes in the domain of Information Society Technologies (IST). It relied mainly on the FORTUNE concept for user participation in research and development. USEM supported a number of important objectives:
- To design a core curriculum for the training of end users.
- To prepare more elderly users and users with disabilities, as representatives of formal and established user organisations, for the participation in European standardisation.
- To qualify more users with disabilities for the participation in the design and assessment of European standardisation work.
- To improve the exchange of experiences by user information networking between different user groups on a European level.
- To increase the level of interaction with user societies between the European countries and the European Disability Forum (EDF).
- To disseminate information and encourage the uptake of new standards.
- To actively involve disabled and elderly people in the whole process of standardisation in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on European and national level.
- To get users involved in European standardisation.
The USEM Concept
The USEM concept is part of the core curriculum for the training of end users. It is based on six principles which govern the involvement of end users in standardisation activities:
See also
- CEN/CENELEC Guide 6
- ANEC
External links
: "User Empowerment in Standardization", in Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Addressing Diversity (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5614). Berlin: Springer, 2009, p. 609-614.