This part of ISO 9241 specifies criteria based on ergonomics factors for the design of physical input devices for interactive systems including keyboards, mice, pucks, joysticks, trackballs, trackpads, tablets and overlays, touch-sensitive screens, styli and light pens, and voice- and gesture-controlled devices. It gives guidance on the design of these devices, taking into consideration the capabilities and limitations of users, and specifies generic design criteria for physical input devices, as well as specific criteria for each type of device. Requirements for the design of products are given either as a result of context-free considerations, or else can be determined based on the specified design criteria for the intended use; such specified criteria generally having been subdivided into task-oriented categories, wherever applicable.

This part of ISO 9241 does not specify the categories that are appropriate for devices as, according to the concept of usability, a product has no inherent usability. Selecting the category to which a certain property of a device belongs is subject to the design of a product.

This part of ISO 9241 is expected to be used by the manufacturers of physical input devices, including product designers and test organizations, in determining the design characteristics of a device for its intended context of use (user population, task, software or environment, etc.). The data generated by the users of this part of ISO 9241 for the description of the properties of their products can be applied in the selection of a device adequate for the actual context of use on the basis of the task primitives relevant for the task of the specific user population, and for achieving the required level of efficiency and effectiveness for a given system.