Standardizing visual display quality

The current ISO 9241-3 standard for visual display quality and the proposed user performance tests are reviewed. The standard is found to be more engineering than ergonomic and problems with system configuration, software applications, display settings, user behaviour, wear and physical environment are addressed. Different methods of visual display quality measurement are compared, direct subjective methods are considered to be the most valid and sensitive. Results with the Display Evaluation Scale, a tool for rating visual display quality, are evaluated. Three user groups of the standard are distinguished and a new configuration and content of standards is proposed to suit these user groups. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.