ISO 9241-920:2024

Overview

ISO 9241-920:2024 - "Ergonomics of human‑system interaction - Part 920: Tactile and haptic interactions" defines requirements and recommendations for designing tactile and haptic hardware and software interactions. The standard covers tactile/haptic inputs and outputs, encoding of information (text, graphics, controls), tactile object and space design, interaction techniques, and guidance for combinations of tactile/haptic with other modalities. It applies to a wide range of devices (wearables, exoskeletons, force‑feedback controllers, tangibles) and stimulation types (vibration, electrotactile, thermal, mechanical) used in real, virtual and mixed realities.

Key topics and technical requirements

ISO 9241-920 provides structured guidance across these technical areas:

• Tactile/haptic inputs and outputs - general design guidance for optimizing performance, accessibility, contextual cues, system state indication, fatigue minimization, and modality coherence.
• Individualization and control - recommendations to enable users to adjust modalities, override or limit force feedback, and personalize tactile/haptic parameters.
• Unintentional perceptions and safety - limiting acoustic and thermal side effects, avoiding sensory adaptation and perceptual illusions, and preventing temporal/spatial masking.
• Attributes for encoding information - guidance on using amplitude, frequency, waveform, spatial addressability, apparent motion, electrotactile properties and other attributes to encode information reliably.
• Content-specific encoding - methods for presenting text, tactile/haptic graphics (information haptification), and interactive controls so they are perceivable, discriminable and learnable.
• Tactile/haptic object and space design - layout, object separation, labeling, object size, and spatial organization for multi‑element tactile displays.
• Conformance and application guidance - how to apply recommendations and evaluate implementations for ergonomic effectiveness.

(See ISO 9241-920 sections 4–9 for detailed topic breakdown.)

Practical applications and users

ISO 9241-920 is directly applicable to professionals designing, evaluating or implementing tactile and haptic systems, including:

• UX and interaction designers working on haptic touchscreens, wearables or controllers
• Product designers and hardware engineers for force‑feedback devices, exoskeletons, and tactile displays
• VR/AR developers integrating haptic feedback into virtual environments
• Accessibility specialists creating tactile graphics and tactile interfaces for visually impaired users
• Usability engineers and human factors teams responsible for ergonomics, safety and compliance

Practical uses include designing accessible tactile graphics, mapping information to vibration or electrotactile patterns, defining safe force‑feedback behaviors, and arranging tactile display spaces to avoid confusion or fatigue.

Related standards

ISO 9241-920 is part of the ISO 9241 ergonomics of human‑system interaction family. It complements other ISO 9241 parts addressing usability and human‑centred design and should be considered alongside organizational usability and accessibility practices when developing tactile/haptic products.

Keywords: ISO 9241-920, tactile interactions, haptic interactions, ergonomics, tactile encoding, haptic design, wearables, force feedback, electrotactile, tactile graphics, information haptification, VR/AR.