<p>
The current generation of design standards in the construction sector has reached a high level of complexity, which reflects negatively on the quality of design standards and as a result on the efficient communication of technical provisions to users. Recently, the desire to improve quality and usability of design standards has become increasingly strong; in fact, enhancing the ‘ease of use’ will be a major focus in the development of the next generation of the Structural Eurocodes, scheduled to be completed by 2020. In this paper the authors outline the state-of-the-art of the concepts of quality and usability applied to design standards. A basic framework to start investigating these concepts is proposed and a real case study to explore the issue of quality in design standards is presented. This research shows that several challenges need to be overcome in pursuing the above goals and that further research is needed.</p>
Steve Denton and Mariapia Angelino provide an overview of the background, status and transition timetable for the second-generation EN Eurocodes that are in development.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.