This International Standard establishes general actuating principles for manually operated actuators forming part of the man-machine interface associated with electrical equipment, in order to: – increase the safety (e.g. of persons, property, environment) through the safe operation of the equipment; – facilitate the proper and timely operation of the actuators. These principles apply, not only for the operation of electrical equipment, machines, or complete plant under normal conditions, but also under fault or emergency conditions. This standard is for general application, from simple cases such as single actuators (e.g. push-buttons) to multiple actuators, forming part of a large assembly of electrical and non-electrical equipment, or part of a central process control station. This standard establishes correlations between the function of an actuator and its direction of actuating or location in relation to other actuators. In the absence of particular rules, this standard may also be applied to actuators operated by a part of the human body other than the hand (e.g. to foot-operated devices).