Within the general scope described in ISO/IEC 9995-1, ISO 9995-9:2016 defines the allocation on a keyboard of a set of graphic characters which, when used in combination with an existing national version keyboard layout, allows the input of a minimum character repertoire as defined herein.

This repertoire is intended to address all characters needed to write all contemporary languages using the Latin script, together with standardized Latin transliterations of some major languages using other scripts. It also contains all symbols and punctuation marks contained in ISO 8859-1, together with some selected other ones commonly used in typography and office use.

It also addresses characters of some other scripts (Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew) to the same extent (in the case of Cyrillic, leaving out some minority languages of the Russian Federation which have only a few hundred speakers left). It provides means to include other scripts (e.g. Arabic, Devanagari) in future versions of ISO 9995-9:2016 (e.g. by amendments).

Furthermore, it addresses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

ISO 9995-9:2016 is primarily intended for word-processing and text-processing applications, to be used with full-sized keyboards as well as with miniature keyboards found on mobile devices ("smartphones" or handheld computers), especially ones which have only keys for the 26 basic Latin letters but no dedicated keys for digits.