ISO/IEC TR 30109:2015

Information technology - User interfaces - Worldwide availability of personalized computer environments

ISO/IEC TR 30109:2015 describes methods to enable access to a personal computing environment via the Internet, with a culturally and linguistically convenient and uniform personal user interface, on different types of hardware.

Technoloies de l'information — Interfaces utilisateurs — Disponibilité mondiale des environnements informatiques personnalisé

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 03-Nov-2015
• ICS: 35.240.01 - Application of information technology in general
• Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35 - User interfaces
• Drafting Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35/WG 5 - Cultural and linguistic adaptability
• Current Stage: 9093 - International Standard confirmed
• Start Date: 28-Jul-2017
• Completion Date: 30-Oct-2025

Overview

ISO/IEC TR 30109:2015 - "Information technology - User interfaces - Worldwide availability of personalized computer environments" describes methods to deliver a consistent, culturally and linguistically appropriate personal computing environment to users anywhere on the Internet. It focuses on mechanisms to transport and apply a user’s preference bundle across different hardware and software platforms so the user experiences a uniform interface whether on a laptop, kiosk, TV or mobile device.

Key topics and technical requirements

• User preferences and preference bundles: Profiles include cultural, language, accessibility and personal settings. Profiles are extensible and may contain alternate options with associated weights to express preference priorities.
• System capabilities: An extensible representation of local hardware/software capabilities and available services to enable capability-to-preference matching.
• APIs, services and file formats:
  • Recommendation for XML UTF-8 formatted preference and capability files.
  • Example XML tags: locale, keyboard, input_method, system, application with parameters such as name, data and weight.
  • Support for arbitrary embedded data in the data parameter to carry application-specific preference files.
• User preference delivery service: Secure retrieval (preferably HTTPS) of preference files from preference servers. Identification methods described include email-based IDs, certificate schemes (e.g., Verisign, CAcert), OpenID, PGP/GPG and external identity providers (Google, Facebook, Microsoft). A practical tip in the report: use “..” instead of “@” where keyboards lack the ‘@’ key.
• Preference settings program: Local software that retrieves profiles, performs capability matching (algorithm can be standardized but implementation-defined), and updates system and application settings. Suitable for lightweight local processing or cloud-hosted environments.
• Matching and quality tags: System may include quality/weight metrics (e.g., application-level quality attributes referencing ISO/IEC TR 19764 or ISO/IEC 15897).

Applications and users

Who benefits:

• Software and platform developers implementing personalized user interfaces
• Cloud and service providers offering user profile delivery and personalization services
• System integrators building multi-device kiosk, hotel or shared-computer solutions
• Accessibility and localization engineers ensuring culturally and linguistically appropriate UI

Practical uses:

• Roaming users obtaining familiar keyboard, input methods and language settings on public or foreign devices
• Enterprises providing standardized employee desktop profiles across devices
• Cloud-based desktops that adapt local input/output to user preferences

Related standards

Standards referenced in the report that are relevant for implementers:

• ISO/IEC 9995, ISO/IEC 14775 (input methods)
• ISO/IEC 15897 (locale registrations)
• ISO/IEC TR 19764 (quality attributes)
• RFC 1345 (mnemonic IM names)

ISO/IEC TR 30109:2015 provides a practical framework for interoperable, secure delivery and application of personalized computing environments across diverse devices and cultures.

Standards Content (Sample)

TECHNICAL ISO/IEC TR
REPORT 30109
First edition
2015-11-01
Information technology — User
interfaces — Worldwide availability of
personalized computer environments
Technoloies de l’information — Interfaces utilisateurs — Disponibilité
mondiale des environnements informatiques personnalisé
Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2015
© ISO/IEC 2015, Published in Switzerland
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on the internet or an intranet, without prior
written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below or ISO’s member body in the country of
the requester.
ISO copyright office
Ch. de Blandonnet 8 • CP 401
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Fax [phone]
[e-mail]
www.iso.org
ii © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Terms and definitions . 1
3 Technology . 2
3.1 Purpose . 2
3.2 User preferences . 2
3.3 System capabilities . 2
3.4 Technology and standards . 2
4 APIs, services and file formats . 3
4.1 User preference settings program . . 3
4.2 User preference delivery service . 3
4.3 User preferences information file format . 4
4.4 System capabilities file format . 4
4.5 Example input methods . 4
Annex A (informative) Guides to various actors for solving the issues . 6
Bibliography . 8
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved iii

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical
activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the
work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee,
ISO/IEC JTC 1.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for
the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent
rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the
Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity
assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT) see the following URL: Foreword - Supplementary information
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee
SC 35, User interfaces.
iv © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

Introduction
In today’s world, people are getting more and more mobile and access to the Internet is becoming
ever more important. When moving around, people are encountering different kinds of hardware, all
capable of communicating with the Internet, but having different user interfaces, such as computers
with different national keyboards, mobile telephones and TV sets. The purpose of this Technical Report
is to provide a way to make access as uniform as possible in a culturally and linguistically acceptable
way so that users can have the almost the same personal user interface to their environments on
the Internet wherever they go. Some areas of concern are the different keyboards or other inputting
devices, different protocols for accessing the personal user environment via the Internet, and having
uniform access to different Internet hosting environments.
The data in this Technical Report is meant for a general audience and is not specifically meant for
research/engineering.
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved v

TECHNICAL REPORT ISO/IEC TR 30109:2015(E)
Information technology — User interfaces — Worldwide
availability of personalized computer environments
1 Scope
This Technical Report describes methods to enable access to a personal computing environment via
the Internet, with a culturally and linguistically convenient and uniform personal user interface, on
different types of hardware.
2 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
2.1
user
individual interacting with the system
[SOURCE: ISO 1503:2008, 3.11]
2.2
user requirements
description of the set of user needs for the software
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 14143-1:2007, 3.12, modified]
2.3
(open system) environment
comprehensive set of interfaces, services, and supporting formats, plus user aspects, for interoperability
and/or portability of applications, data, or information, as specified by information technology
International Standards and profiles
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC/TR 10000-1:1998, 3.2.2, modified]
2.4
server
in a computer network, a functional unit that provides services to workstations, to personal computers
or to other functional units
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 2382:2015, 2120558]
2.5
program
prepared sequence of instructions to the system to accomplish a defined task
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC/IEEE 9945:2009, 3.300, modified]
2.6
application program interface
API
definition of syntax and semantics for providing computer system services
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC/IEEE 9945:2009, 3.19, modified]
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved 1

2.7
service
software program that provides responses to requests from other software programs, which are
frequently on other remotely connected computers
3 Technology
3.1 Purpose
The problem at hand is to match the preferences of a user to the system at hand, including hardware
and software. The user preferences are specified as a preference bundle. The preference bundle is
specifying all preferences of the user, including cultural preferences, accessibility preferences, and
personal preferences. A specification of a preference bundle format is given in Clause 4. There can be
multiple preferences for the same job, so a way to weight the multiple preferences is needed. The system
is specified with its hardware and software capabilities. Finding a solution would then be a matter of
capability matching to the user preferences. The user can be presented to a way to modify the selected
choice of settings.
The scenario is that a user can use systems everywhere in the world, in a way that best fits the user’s
preferences. An example is people on a journey, who use equipment like a keyboard suited for a foreign
culture, for example, at a net café or at a hotel. The user would then be able to run programs in a language
of choice of the user and with input possibilities fitted to make the user able to operate conveniently in
the language of choice. This could possibly be run as a service over the Internet.
3.2 User preferences
The user preferences are specified as a number of personal preferences, and a number of more general
preferences, such as cultural preferences on language and cultural conventions. The user preferences
would be extensible and with alternate possibilities with preference weights attached. The user
preferences would be able to reference other user preferences, including more generically specified
preferences such as cultural and linguistic preferences. The user is able to obtain the preferences over the
network everywhere in the world. The data could also be obtained from a local source, such as a usb stick.
3.3 System capabilities
The system capabilities is specifiable in an extensible format, and able to include other system
capabilities, such as hardware and software capabilities of an accessing system, in combination with
services obtained via the net.
3.4 Technology and standards
To accomplish this, it is necessary to have a specific standardized format for user preferences and for
system capabilities, plus a method to access such information over the net in a personalized way. A way
to do this is with XML formatted files and access protected file retrieval over an https connection.
Several information service providers, including the user’s own services, could provide the
preferences information, possibly via a user-id (email) or profile id and optionally a passcode or other
identification mechanisms.
The specialized software could be easy to install but could also for convenience be part of the operating
system environment.
The algorithm for capability matching to preferences could be standardized. The capability matching
could use existing matching algorithms and be implementation defined.
2 © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

4 APIs, services and file formats
4.1 User preference settings program
This subclause specifies formats and contents of user preferences and system capabilities. It also
specifies services to obtain such information.
For the local system to obtain and set the user’s preferences, a program needs to be available on the
local system responsible for the inputting and outputting for the user that can retrieve a file with the
user preferences and set preferences accordingly. The user’s preferences settings program will need to
contact a preferences server for the user’s preferences information. A preference server is a web (https)
server that is capable of delivering a file with a personalized profile, given the profile identification
and optionally a passcode. Info on servers can be found on the SC 35 web site at http://www.open-std.
org/jtc1/sc35/wg5/. The user’s preferences settings program could have one preferred user information
settings server, and a possibility to choose amongst other information servers, plus a possibility for the
user to type in a self-chosen user information server.
The user’s preferences retrieval program lets the identification and retrieval services identify the user
and deliver a file with the user’s preferences. The communication could preferably be done on a secure
protocol such as the https. From the information retrieved, the user’s preferences settings program
determines the best match from available resources and taking into account available permissions,
updates system and application settings accordingly, including installed applications, installed
accessibility functionality, menus, application preferences, and cultural and language settings including
input method choice.
If the user’s preferences are elaborate, the settings update processing could be time consuming and
error prone, for example, when installing new applications or installing new language versions or when
direct matches are not possible. For selected generic settings such as language and culture profiles and
for simpler settings like keyboard settings, matching of the user profile to the system capabilities could
in many cases be not
...