ISO/DIS 7250-3

ISO/TC 159/SC 3

Secretariat: JISC

Date: 2026-01-09

Basic human body measurements for technological design —

Part 3:
Worldwide and regional design ranges for use in product standards

Définitions des mesures de base du corps humain pour la conception technologique —

Partie 3: Gammes de conception régionales et mondiales pour utilisation dans les normes de produits

DIS stage

© ISO 2026

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Contents

Foreword iv

1 Scope 1

2 Normative references 1

3 Terms and definitions 2

4 Worldwide and regional design ranges 2

5 Procedures for establishing design ranges 2

5.1 Worldwide ranges 2

5.2 Regional ranges 3

6 Worldwide design ranges 4

6.1 Relationship between ISO/TR 7250-2 and this part of ISO 7250 4

6.2 Missing or sparse data 4

6.3 Worldwide design range table (normative) 4

Annex A (informative) Regional design values 14

Annex B (informative) Other data sources 54

Bibliography 55

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.

The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).

Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not constitute an endorsement.

For an explanation on the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see the following URL: https://www.iso.org/foreword-supplementary-information.html.

ISO 7250 consists of the following parts, under the general title Basic human body measurements for technological design:

• Part 1: Body measurement definitions and landmarks
• Part 2: Statistical summaries of body measurements from national populations
• Part 3: Worldwide and regional design values for use in ISO equipment standards
• Part 4: Expected performance of skilled anthropometrists

The committee responsible for this document is ISO/TC 159, Ergonomics, Subcommittee SC 3, Anthropometry and biomechanics.

This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (ISO 7250-3 ^[1]), which has been technically revised.

The main changes are as follows:

• Measurement item numbers were updated to harmonize with ISO 7250-1:2017.
• Statistics for the male and female combined data were deleted.
• The most recent edition of ISO/TR 7250-2 provided the anthropometric data for this standard.

Basic human body measurements for technological design —

Part 3:
Worldwide and regional design ranges for use in product standards

This part of ISO 7250 provides worldwide and regional tables of design ranges for use with product standards for equipment design and safety that require ISO 7250 body measurement data input.

Anthropometric data for technological design are used and presented in many standards. Therefore, it is critical to update and revise those values in a timely manner, as the body sizes and variation of member body populations change with time. Further, the schedule of member body anthropometric surveys varies widely. Many industrial products are developed for regional or worldwide markets without a clear presentation of regional and worldwide ISO 7250 design ranges. Users of standards require the most appropriate body measurement values for their intended applications.

Together with ISO/TR 7250-2, which serves as a continuously updated data source for most current anthropometric data from individual member bodies, this part of ISO 7250 provides a periodically updated normative design values for worldwide and regional design ranges, with guidance on sex differences. This part of ISO 7250 is intended as the single source of normative anthropometric data for equipment design guidance in standards. In this part, data from all the member bodies found in ISO/TR 7250-2 are considered simultaneously, whereas in ISO/TR 7250-2, member body data are presented separately for each member body.

While there are sources for individual member body data in ISO/TR 7250-2, most standards do not use individual member body data for technological specification. This part of ISO 7250 is to be used whenever normative worldwide or regional anthropometric data are needed. In cases when there are no suitable measurements in this part of ISO 7250, the methods and justifications used in arriving at regional and worldwide values from the body measurement data of individual populations can be used with suitable measurement data.

The scope of this part of ISO 7250 is limited to the presentation of univariate design ranges of the type currently utilized in product standards (e.g. P1, P5, P95, and P99) and does not address shortcomings of using those values in multivariate designs. A separate standard on multivariate design is in preparation. In addition, this part of ISO 7250 does not address body measurements used in product standards that are not defined in ISO 7250-1. The methods used in developing this part of ISO 7250 do not take into account the population size or sampling methodology of the member bodies, so statistical values from a sparsely populated member body could set regional or worldwide upper or lower limits. The reader is referred to ISO/TR 7250-2 for details on sampling methods used in national surveys.

The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.

ISO 7250-1:2017, Basic human body measurements for technological design — Part 1: Body measurement definitions and landmarks

ISO 7250-1, Basic human body measurements for technological design — Part 1: Body measurement definitions and landmarks

ISO/TR 7250-2, Basic human body measurements for technological design — Part 2: Statistical summaries of body measurements from national populations

ISO/TR 7250-2:2024, Basic human body measurements for technological design — Part 2: Statistical summaries of body measurements from national populations

For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO/TR 7250-2:2024 apply.

ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:

• IEC Electropedia: available at http://www.electropedia.org/
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at http://www.iso.org/obp

Design ranges presented in this part of ISO 7250 are directly related to ISO/TR 7250-2.

Design ranges are specified as smallest to largest 1st to 99th and 5th to 95th percentile value observed in national populations. Each percentile value in a design range comes from a single member body. Typically, product design requirements specify a smallest to largest range of values to be accommodated. However, some product standards specify medium size or midrange values, so midrange estimates are also provided here.

The worldwide ranges specified in this part of ISO 7250 are normative for product standards. However, some users of this part of 7250 may be developing products designed for a more focused, regional market. For this reason, a method is presented for creating regional design ranges from individual member body data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. Examples of this process are shown in informative Annex A. For the anthropometric data used in deriving regional and worldwide ranges, the procedure and information for acquiring these data directly follow from the process described in ISO/TR 7250-2. The process of specifying design ranges defined in this part of ISO 7250 starts from the individual member body data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2.

Anthropometric data are collected in many countries in the world. These anthropometric surveys vary markedly in quality, frequency, methodology, and purpose. In order to produce normative design ranges, it is critical to use anthropometric data that meet only the highest standards of representativeness and reliability. In addition, ISO standards are fundamentally a service for ISO member bodies. Therefore, the worldwide ranges presented in this part of ISO 7250 are derived from national populations of ISO member bodies presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. ISO/TR 7250-2 data are known to be consistent with ISO 7250-1 measurement definitions and protocols and ISO 15535 ^[2] anthropometric database methods, and ISO/TR 7250-2 statistics have been reviewed and checked with member bodies for accuracy and reliability.

The design ranges in Clause 6 contain male and female values. The sample sizes are listed so it is clear that different numbers of males and females were measured in the anthropometric surveys that are found in ISO/TR 7250-2. The sex ratios in the sample may or may not represent the sex ratios in the working age population of the member bodies contributing data. In general, to accommodate as many males and females as possible with a given design, the best practice is to evaluate, for example, both the male and female 5^th percentile value for a given dimension, and use the value that provides the greatest range of accommodation. When designs are created for single-sex occupational groups, such as some military organizations, or some hospital nursing staffs, the sex-specific design values should be used.

In Clause 6, the worldwide P1 value represents the smallest 1st percentile observed among all the member bodies with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. The worldwide P5 value represents the smallest 5th percentile observed among all the member bodies with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. The worldwide P95 value represents the largest 95th percentile observed among all the member bodies with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. The worldwide P99 value represents the largest 99th percentile observed among all the member bodies with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. Thus, the values in the tables are based on particular surveys and only provide estimates for particular populations. The statistical confidence in the more extreme percentiles, e.g. P1 and P99, is much lower than it is for percentiles closer to the mean. Because the values for a given dimension may derive from different populations (e.g., P1 is from one population and P5 is from another) it is possible that in some cases the P1 value is larger than the P5 value. In such cases, the P1 values are eliminated from the table, and users are advised to use the more reliable P5 value. The same situation and same resolution occurs with the P95 and P99 values. In some cases, the statistics presented in ISO/TR 7250-2 are based on anthropometric surveys with relatively small sample sizes. Since statistical confidence is a function of sample size, the summary statistics from surveys with smaller sample sizes are not sufficiently robust for use in normative design values. Therefore, design values in this part of ISO 7250 are taken only from those statistics in ISO/TR 7250-2 where the sample size is greater than 250. Note that, since males and female data are presented separately, the 250 minimum applies to each sex separately. For data from Germany, the sample size is not specified in ISO/TR 7250-2. However, as those data are based on large sample size, the same have been used for calculating the worldwide ranges and European regional ranges. All the body measurements given in this standard are in mm, unless otherwise specified.

In some cases, the smallest or largest percentile values in ISO/TR 7250-2 have been identified as either unusual or derived from body scan data not validated in accordance with ISO 20685-1 ^[3]. In such cases, a more reliable value may be chosen to set the worldwide design limit.

In some cases, a particular dimension may have been included in the national surveys of only one or two countries. In order that worldwide design values not be artificially restricted to data that may not actually be globally representative, in Clause 6 worldwide values are included only when there is at least one value from Asia, and one from Europe or North/South America.

The midrange estimates in this part of ISO 7250 are calculated as the midpoints of the interval between the worldwide P5 and P95 estimates. The user is cautioned that these midrange estimates, while centrally located between the P5 and P95 estimates, are not equivalent to statistical medians. They may not represent medium-sized males or females in any particular population.

Regional design ranges illustrated in Annex A are informative in nature. In general, regional ranges are derived from only the member body data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. In the case of defining regional ranges for the European region, existing published CEN standards were used as a starting point and where individual European member body data in ISO/TR 7250-2 exceed the published CEN standard ranges, ISO/TR 7250-2 limits were used to form the new European regional ranges.

For the remaining regional ranges, the procedure follows that of the worldwide design values. Specifically, the regional P1 value represents the smallest 1st percentile observed among all the member bodies of that region with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. The regional P5 value represents the smallest 5th percentile observed among all the regional member bodies with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. The regional P95 value represents the largest 95th percentile observed among all the regional member bodies with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. The regional P99 value represents the largest 99th percentile observed among all the regional member bodies with data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2. In the informative regional data, values are included even if they are from only one member body. These are indicated with an asterisk when the source is only one member body.

In addition to the European region, informative regional design values are presented for East Asia (China, Japan, Korea), Southeast Asia (India and Thailand) and the Americas (US, Canada, Brazil).

ISO/TR 7250-2 can change at any time as new data emerge from member bodies. Unlike ISO/TR 7250-2, this part of ISO 7250 presents normative worldwide design ranges reviewed every five years in accordance with ISO operating procedures. Member bodies with new anthropometric data are encouraged to submit their statistics to the Secretariat of ISO TC 159/SC 3 for inclusion in ISO/TR 7250-2.

When suitable worldwide values are not available, the cell of the table is left blank. When P1 and P99 values were unavailable, some member bodies have only submitted P5 and P95 values for ISO/TR 7250-2, from which the values in this part of ISO 7250 are set. Using the method described in 5.1, it is possible that the data from one member body set the P5 value, and data from another member body set the P1 value. This could occasionally cause the logical impossibility that the P1 value in this part of ISO 7250 is actually greater than the P5 value. Therefore, when such occasions arise, the P1 value has been eliminated from the design range table and noted on the table. The same situation can occur at the upper end of the distribution, with P95 and P99. In those cases also, the P99 value is eliminated.

Table 1 presents the normative worldwide design ranges for ISO 7250-1 body dimensions. The ranges in Table 1 shall be used in product design standards.

Table 1 — Worldwide design values

Values in mm unless otherwise specified

1. 
   (informative)
   
   Regional design values
   1. There are occasionally business reasons to develop products for a more focused, regional market. In this Annex, a method for creating regional design ranges from individual member body data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2 is illustrated. Four examples are presented here: one is Europe, where anthropometric standards are used to help show conformity with European legislation; the others are East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Americas. Note that regional design ranges are informative in nature, and that other regions may be added as new data are available.

In general, regional ranges should be derived from only the member body data presented in ISO/TR 7250-2 for reasons described in 5.1. In the case of defining regional ranges for the European region, existing CEN and ISO standards were used as a starting point (e.g. EN 547-3 ^[4], EN ISO 14738 ^[5], ISO 15534-3 ^[6]). Where individual European member body data in ISO/TR 7250-2 exceed the published CEN standard ranges, the ISO/TR 7250-2 limits were used to update the European design ranges. The European design values are seen in Table A.1.

Table A.1 — Example of regional design values for the European region

Values in mm unless otherwise specified