Consumers and standards: partnership for a better world

By opening this module, you have demonstrated interest in learning more about how consumers and standards can form a mutually beneficial partnership.

Congratulations! You have already taken the first step towards making goods and services meet consumers’ needs.

If you are partially sighted and would prefer this module to be in a more suitable format use the A+ or A- in the bottom menu to change the font size.

Whether you are working within a standards-writing organization, consumer association, or you are an everyday citizen, the following pages can help you by:

  • Describing how consumers can work with standards to improve our world, with examples
  • Helping you find where to look and whom to contact for more information
  • Giving a helpful repository of resources

The structure contains:

  • Main content with themes, specific examples and helpful Web sites, with review questions for each section (Go to Section 1)
  • Useful references, a description of materials that are available to help you (Go to Useful references)
  • Materials and resources, a direct link to files and other resource materials on consumers, standardization and related subjects (Go to Materials and resources)

All sources mentioned in the main parts of the module are available in entirety under “Materials and resources” (unless specifically mentioned otherwise). Many of these resources will be useful to you in the future. They are not intended to be read and absorbed whilst completing this module.

This module will take about a half-day to complete. It is possible to do it in several sessions. It will take longer than half a day if you explore many of the resource materials and hyperlinks to Web sites. This is optional and entirely at your discretion.

Please let us know your reactions (Go to Feedback Form).

At the end you will be able to:

  • understand what standards are and what they do
  • appreciate how consumers can participate in standards development
  • say why consumers should get involved
  • demonstrate how good standards improve goods and services available for consumers, using concrete examples
  • Know where to go for more information

click to startClick here to start now.

Good luck and have fun!


The publications referenced in Consumers and standards: partnership for a better world were valid at the time this module was produced in 2008. Please consult ISO Online for the latest versions of information publications and other references contained in this module.

NOTE


For this module we use the following convention:

Internal links (within the CD-ROM)

External links (outside the CD-ROM requires a web connection)

pdf links (files or documents available on the CD-ROM)

To open these documents you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader (included on this CD-ROM in the ACROBAT folder)