ISO 10075-2:1996

Overview

ISO 10075-2:1996 - "Ergonomic principles related to mental workload - Part 2: Design principles" provides guidance for designing work systems that match human cognitive capacities. The standard focuses on task and equipment design, workplace layout and working conditions to prevent both mental overload and underload, supporting health, safety, well‑being and performance. It extends ISO 6385 ergonomics principles with specific recommendations about mental workload and is intended for use in new system design and substantial redesigns.

Key topics and technical requirements

• Design principles: Fit the work system to users by integrating ergonomists and user participation early in design; perform function analysis, function allocation and task analysis.
• Levels of intervention: Address workload intensity at task/job, technical equipment, environmental and organizational levels; control exposure duration through temporal work organization.
• Fatigue guidelines: Reduce or optimize workload intensity, limit exposure duration, and provide rest pauses; consider task complexity, clarity of goals, adequacy and ambiguity of information, signal discriminability, redundancy and compatibility.
• Cognitive load management: Minimize unnecessary working‑memory and long‑term memory demands; prefer recognition over recall; provide help and retrieval aids.
• Information design: Use unambiguous displays, appropriate coding (shape, colour, timing), and avoid excessive redundancy; support mental models and provide reference standards to enable relative judgements.
• Temporal and control aspects: Avoid time delays or provide prediction/quickening displays; prefer serial processing where possible; manage time‑sharing and attentional demands.
• Adaptability: Design systems to accommodate changing skills and conditions (e.g., dynamic task allocation where operators can reassign tasks based on state).

Applications and users

Who uses ISO 10075-2:

• Human factors engineers / ergonomists
• System and equipment designers
• Safety and occupational health professionals
• Employers’ and employees’ representatives
• UX and control‑room designers

Typical applications:

• Designing operator interfaces, control rooms, industrial machinery, transport systems, and complex process-control environments.
• Redesigning workflows and shift schedules to reduce fatigue, monotony, reduced vigilance or satiation.
• Specifying information displays, alarms and control compatibility to reduce mental workload and improve performance.

Related standards

• ISO 6385: Ergonomic principles in the design of work systems (foundation standard referenced)
• ISO 10075‑1 (General terms and definitions) and ISO 10075‑3 (Measurement and assessment) - related parts of the ISO 10075 series

Keywords: ISO 10075-2, mental workload, ergonomic design, work system design, task design, workplace ergonomics, human factors, fatigue, vigilance, information design.