Industrial standards are accepted practice for ensuring safety, quality, compatibility and interconnectivity but also business opportunities and frameworks for products and services. Very often they are only considered as a matter of technology and industry with little direct relevance on the users. However, in case of missing standards or bad standards the relevance for users becomes pretty obvious. Therefore, consumer organisations have started to recognise that they have a role in standardisation. Nevertheless, there seems a broad gap separating users from participation in standardisation. In principle, the standardisation process is open and transparent for participation. Reality is different.
The session deals with the relevance of standards for users with disabilities and the relevance of users with disabilities for the standardisation. Different players will present their points of view and lead to a discussion how the participation of users with disabilities in standardisation can be improved in order to achieve better standards.

Contributions should include but are not restricted to the following topics:

Introduction by STS chair

• Users with disabilities and standards (Christian Bühler)

Users need standards²

• Relevance of Standards form a user perspective
• Relevance of standards from an industrial perspective

Standards need users²

• Participation in the standardisation process
• How standardisation works

User needs standards * standards need users

• Policy
• USEM (Thijs Soede, Vilans)