This part of ISO9241 gives recommendations for tactile and haptic hardware and software interactions. It provides guidance on the design and evaluation of hardware, software, and combinations of hardware and software interactions, including

• the design/use of tactile/haptic inputs, outputs, and/or combinations of inputs and outputs, with general guidance on their design/use as well as on designing/using combinations of tactile and haptic interactions for use in combination with other modalities or as the exclusive mode of interaction,

• the tactile/haptic encoding of information, including textual data, graphical data and controls,

• the design of tactile/haptic objects,

• the layout of tactile/haptic space, and

• interaction techniques.

It does not provide recommendations specific to Braille, but can apply to interactions that make use of Braille.

The recommendations given in this part of ISO9241 are applicable to at least the controls of a virtual workspace, but they can also be applied to an entire virtual environment — consistent, in as far as possible, with the simulation requirements.

NOTE It is recognized that some interactive scenarios might be constrained by the limitation that a real workspace is to be modelled in a virtual environment. Objects can be in suboptimal positions or conditions for haptic interaction by virtue of the situation being modelled.