A manual operating unit for operating a robot in a manual mode, for the purpose of a teaching operation, a start/stop operation, or the like. The manual operating unit includes a housing; a robot diagram provided on the housing for schematically showing an external appearance of a robot mechanical section; an index provided on the housing in association with the robot diagram for representing a plurality of directions of motions to be performed by the robot mechanical section under control; and a motion command section provided on the housing in association with the index for causing the robot mechanical section to perform the motions in the directions represented by the index. For example, the index includes a drawing illustrating three coordinate axes of a three-axis rectangular coordinate system provided for the robot mechanical section. In this arrangement, the motion command section includes a plurality of motion command keys for causing the robot mechanical section to perform the motions along the three coordinate axes illustrated by the drawing.