Trans RINA, Vol 157, Part C1, Intl J Marine Design, Jan - Dec 2015
input to evaluate their designs and obtain feedback to improve design thinking.
The relationship between designers and seafarers is experientially remote in the current design practice and that may lead to the unawareness of operational issues which ships’ crew face during their sea time. When designing to improve usability, it is necessary to know more about what users do and how they do it, and what they are expecting. This is why the relationship between the users and designers is vital. This workshop provided a good
opportunity to build a multidisciplinary
relationship and to facilitate the communication between future maritime designers and seafarers. Furthermore seafarers’ feedback provided important
information
about how ships, their components and services are used, which can assist with improving ship design, safety and operation.
The questionnaire was employed to gather quantitative and qualitative data in this study. The two rating scale questions contained in the questionnaire
students’ CoU knowledge before and after the workshop did not indicate to the participants how the researcher will grade the knowledge based on the response, as there were no verbal anchors. This may have misled some of the participants, although according to the feedback, it can be seen that the responses were in a similar pattern before and after the workshop. However, it is suggestive of the need to update these two questions within future questionnaires.
Since the researcher was present during the survey, this instrument can be further identified as an Investigator- administered survey, which has some advantages and some disadvantages, the latter in the sphere of potentially influencing the data collected. Mitchell and Jolley [36] explained that the presence of the investigator can lead to a higher response rate as one of the major advantages, while on the contrary, the participants may feel discomfort regarding anonymity for which reason they might not be open and honest in their answers. In order to overcome these issues, the researcher obtained an ethics committee approval and made an effort to obtain open and honest results by informing that the survey was voluntary and those who did not want to participate could withdraw at any time without providing any explanation.
5.2 RESULTS DISCUSSION 5.2 (a) Lo-fi prototypes
The results gathered by analysing the design process, the prototypes and the videos prepared by the students clearly demonstrate that they have a lack of knowledge about the CoU in ship design, i.e. goals that the users are expected to achieve, the users themselves, the tasks and the equipment, and the physical, social and organisational environments.
to identify
Firstly, it was clearly evident from the results that none of the groups were able to fully define the goals that the seafarers’ had to achieve within their work context. Thus, only a few groups partially took into account such goals while developing their prototypes. Secondly, considering that it is important to identify the crewmembers that are going to perform different tasks within a particular work context, it was surprising, and unfortunate, to see that none of the groups were able to distinguish the crew responsibility based on their ranks.
Understanding of crew roles is a vital factor in the context of use, and thus in the design process. Since the participants were final year engineering students about to graduate, this unawareness supports the findings of earlier literature and studies [17-19, 26, 27] which says that the design practice today does not show explicit consideration of the end user, and thus in this respect does not apply HF concepts to their full extent – if at all. Thirdly, the designers should not only consider the immediate crew tasks, but also need to consider any other tasks that crew members will be doing simultaneously, including considering that in different work contexts, the crew roles may change. As an example, when crew is doing the abandon ship drill, some of them potentially have to attend to different tasks like coordination and looking after the safety of others whilst considering their own safety too. If the designers are not aware of such real life situations, it may lead to less-than-usable designs. Thus the workshop findings show the importance of CoU knowledge for design engineering students. .
Finally, the designers should be aware of the operational conditions facing the crew within their work contexts. Some of the teams identified the necessity of selecting a particular operational condition for the design; although they
did not talk about other possible
operational
conditions that the crew may face. However, in general, most of the teams discussed the safety and comfort necessary for the seafarers, and some designers showed a focus towards making different arrangements within their designed work contexts
aimed at keeping seafarers
happy. . 5.2 (b) Questionnaire
As an overall summary, the students participating in the workshop appreciated the necessity of CoU knowledge as a prerequisite to design a usable ship. One of the major findings of the questionnaire was that 24% of the final year students only heard about HCD for the first time during
the workshop. Furthermore a definite
majority 86% of the students recognised that “design the problem out” is the best approach to eliminate the HF issues which means that they need to be acquainted with the possibilities to do so. In general terms, it is found that this workshop helped the design engineering students to improve their understanding about the different situations on board ships, and the role of the crew.
© 2015: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
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