Related link: http://news.com.com/2008-1013-5200672.html
Berkeley's Bob Glushko's interview (see the URL above) on standards gets it pretty right. I hope public sector regulators charged with recommending standards really appreciate his point. Bob adds a clarification in a follow-up note that is too straight-forward to miss:
I do think it is fair to say that neither OASIS, W3C, nor WS-I are standards organizations according to the definition I advanced here. But I don't think it is fair to lump the W3C in with WS-I on either openness or IP terms, and I'd hate for people to make that inference. The W3C worked very hard to put a royalty-free policy in place while OASIS and WS-I have aggressively resisted one.
It is not bad that large corporations try to influence standards developments: a standard is an agreement and they are key stakeholders. Standards help promote and channel innovation. But what is good for General Motors in not always good for America. Ever had a friend with Repetitive Strain Injury (e.g., Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) from typing? But ever seen a keyboard that complied with International Standard ISO/IEC 15411 1999 I.T Segmented Keyboard Layouts? A standard that is too far away from the strategic or profit interests of corporations large or small will not be supported by them, unless pressure can be applied from outside or unless good people inside the company weedle it in.
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theory vs. practice
That ISO standard was based on a design by a physiotherapist trained in anatomy, who had particularly studied the issues of RSI. I believe the physiology behind the standard is that everyone has slightly different angles and tilts for shoulder, elbow and wrist. And some people have different length arms. Consequently, just having a different fixed arrangement for the position of keys (I am not talking about which keys have which functions here, that is a red herring) may not be of any help to a particular person. It is the customizability of the keyboard to your particular body that is important.
RSI is a terrible problem. I have had two friends who could not use keyboards for more than a year each: they had to go to voice interfaces and to alternate keyboards. If you do a simple Google search, you will see reports that with current keyboards and work practises, some jobs of keyboard workers experience rates of between 25% and 34%. In the US alone it supposedly represents a US$30 billion cost (this figure may include other kinds of RSI than keyboard RSI). Your company is probably already losing several weeks of productivity, unless it has been positively addressing the RSI issue.
It is dumb to write off all "ergonomic thingies" (which, given the comment on split keyboards, you are not) given the extent of the problem. What would be better would be to look at the label of ergonomic-looking products: they might look funky but do they actually claim to be ergonomic? Do they have any independent reputable studies to back up the claims? Was the essential design of the product made by someone who has been trained in physiology/anatomy (I don't mean life drawing!) or was it just some industrial designer?
Similarly, when discussing ergonomics and keyboards, it seems that some people are talking about typing or error rates while others are talking about health and safety issues: it is the latter sense of ergonomic that I think anyone who types for a living should pay close attention to.
When we see claims that a product has been designed by experts in ergonomics, we cannot jump to the conclusion that this means they are experts in anatomy/physiology rather than, say, HCI people who are good at Fitt's Law.
So this particular ISO standard is, from what I can make out, in no sense "ivory tower" but grimly practical and comes out of "mingling" with people with RSI/Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Since you make a fairly direct charge, please permit me a direct response: what makes you jump to the conclusion that it is a standard that is "too theoretical to be any realworld use", assuming you are not speaking from ignorance or misanthropy? What are examples of, say, ISO standards that are too theoretical to be of any realworld use?
theory vs. practice
In many cases it turns out the standards that some standards body comes up with are too theoretical to be of any realworld use.
All those "ergonomic" thingies are a case in point. Many advocate a complete change in the keyboard layout, redistributing the keys. This is completely useless to people who know how to type using a traditional keyboard layout.
It took me several weeks to get used to the gap between the lefthand and righthand sides of my natural keyboard, had the distribution of keys also been different I'd have thrown it out in disgust.
And that's just one person, what if you have an entire company with hundreds of people loose several weeks of productivity just to get used to a different keyboard (I do recommend the split keyboard layout, don't get me wrong)?
Now imagine that same company shifting to a different keyboard altogether which requires retraining every single employee who comes on board for several weeks plus a period of several months before they can speedtype on it?
And that's just keyboards...
Standards are nice and good, but the people making them up should really get out of their ivory towers more and mingle with those who have to live with the consequences of those standards in the real world.
They may be surprised to find that many things that look so nice on a piece of paper are useless or worse when applied to real problems in real companies/communities/whatever.