Supporting Consistent Design and Sensemaking across Ship Bridge Equipment through Open Innovation

Abstract

A ship’s bridge is a complex work environment that is typically outfitted with a range of equipment supplied from numerous different vendors (Lützhöft & Vu, 2018). Multivendor ship bridge systems (MBS) that merge independent equipment from different vendors can create disparities for navigation crew once all necessary equipment is installed into a single work environment (Nordby, Mallam & Lützhöft, 2019). Navigators must engage with different pieces of equipment located on the bridge of a ship throughout their watch shift to enable successful planning and execution of operations. Thus, the very nature of MBS create circumstances where navigators must interact with equipment having multiple design languages across the many physical and digital inputs and outputs of a bridge (see Figure 10.1). For example, different software systems, even supplied by the same vendor, may have different screen layouts, menu structures, colour combinations, iconography, font style and sizes that vary across equipment. A simple analogy to the inconsistencies of typical MBS are the differences found between using contemporary Mac and Windows PC operating systems. Users must adapt to the individual systems and functionalities in order to successfully complete desired tasks. Poor design increases cognitive demands for users (Woods & Patterson, 2000) and can have negative consequences, particularly in the safety-critical context of operations at sea (Lee & Sanquist, 2000; Mallam, Lundh & MacKinnon, 2015). Poor Graphical User Interface (GUI) design has shown to have negative implications on navigation operations, increasing the potential for making errors, hiding critical information and contributing to accidents and deaths at sea (Kataria, Praetorius, Schröder-Hinrichs & Baldauf, 2015; Mallam, Nordby, Johnsen & Bjørneseth, 2020).