Project description
Ship design processes are currently disconnected from the operational experience of ship users. This gap is a root cause of maritime accidents, near-accidents, crew stress and fatigue, and a hindrance to operating ships at their full safety and efficiency potential. As the maritime sector integrates new energy-efficiency and zero-emission technologies, the gap widens. These technologies change what operating a vessel means: multiple energy sources with different safety thresholds and planning decisions that did not exist on single-fuel vessels. Designing interfaces around individual technologies, rather than integrated operations, fails to support the people responsible for operating the whole system. Despite the urgency of this transition, there are currently no design guidelines for safe, integrated, human-centred user interfaces for zero-emission vessels.
OpenDesign addresses this gap by integrating human-centred, risk-informed design into the design of ships and their bridge systems. The project applies a structured human-centred design process grounded in field contact with operators, iterative prototyping, and systematic evaluation to concrete ship design cases. The process is risk-informed: it draws on human factors expertise and risk analysis to ensure that safety-critical aspects of new technology operation are reflected in the interface from the outset. The approach is designed to be scalable: by open-sourcing the process, methods, and design outputs, OpenDesign makes it possible for others to replicate and adapt the approach across different vessel types and decarbonisation technologies.
The project works through two design cases initially. The first is a retrofit case: the Dirac, a 10-metre hydrogen-hybrid research workboat owned by Ecomar Propulsion, and used to test zero emission propulsion technologies. The second is a newbuilding case: a 20-metre zero-emission oceanographic research vessel being designed by students and academics at the University of Strathclyde in collaboration with the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS). Together, the two cases cover retrofit and newbuilding contexts, and two different vessel types and operational profiles.
The project is currently developing and testing an integrated design framework through the two cases. In the retrofit case, this has produced a set of initial interface concepts: a range circle that integrates propulsion state, energy availability, and navigational context into a single spatial representation; a sequencer that supports planning across multiple energy sources; and a battery and fuel-cell monitoring display that brings together safety-critical signals from systems that were previously separate.
All results will be released as open-source material through OpenBridge, the open design system for maritime user interfaces, initiated and led by AHO. This includes design artefacts, process documentation, and education packages for Naval Architecture and Human Factors educators and students. The aim is to lower the threshold for others to apply human-centred design approaches in ship design, and to build a critical mass of maritime professionals trained in this way.
