Crane is an important equipment for the transport of heavy goods in industrial sites, but it is also known as one of the most fatal machines. In order to reduce crane accidents, it is necessary to minimize human errors during crane operations. To achieve this, ergonomic design principles are recommended to be reflected from the crane design stage. The study analyzed the safety certification standards for crane that should be fulfilled at the crane design and manufacturing stage. This study selected five representative ergonomic design principles (feedback, compatibility, consistency, full-proof, and fail-safe) by surveying heuristic evaluation principles that are widely used for usability evaluation in early design stage. Next, the principles were applied to the safety certification standards to identify insufficient clauses. This study identified 12 insufficient clauses out of 119 in the current safety certification standards for crane and discussed their improvement directions to comply the ergonomic principles. The analysis results of this study can help of improving the safety certification standards and the method used in this study can also be applied to identify insufficient clauses in the safety certification standards for other industrial machines such as press machine and lift.