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Good design is a key to safe and efficient operation, which is a perfectly obvious statement, were it not for the fact that just about everyone will regularly experience design deficiencies, in every walk of life. “The person who designed this must think engineers have six arms and are three feet high” is the sort of remark provoked by equipment that has clearly not been designed for easy maintenance aboard a ship, but the same sentiments could equally be heard about a car or a recalcitrant domestic appliance. Design for the human element is still a developing science.

The current edition of the international maritime human element bulletin Alert! draws together much useful thinking on the design of control equipment aboard ship. Beginning with the story of a fast ferry master who became disoriented because of a lack of visibility at the crucial moment, with the ship unmooring in gusty conditions, the bulletin considers the design of control rooms and ships’ bridges.

While noting that everyone has their own ideas of the best possible layout, it demonstrates the value of a checklist for design based on ergonomic criteria that is designed to enhance efficiency, prevent errors and provide its users with the information and operability they need. There is more to design than meets the eye and both those who are responsible for fitting out ships and indeed designing the equipment that will be fitted are recommended to follow these principles.

Obviously the best design will emerge from designers who have forged a close understanding of the operators’ work and can put themselves in the operators’ place as they devise the equipment, or layout of a ship’s control systems. The reader is introduced to the importance of “usability”, as demonstrated by Rolls Royce Marine, which has been introducing radically new designs for offshore ships with a “user centred design process”.

A study of casualty investigations provides many examples where inadequate design, possibly by somebody who did not comprehend the realities of ship operation, was a major contributor to the accident. “Human error” may well not be entirely due to the failure of the human, but to his or her interface with the equipment.

The Alert! bulletin provides a useful and basic approach to the eleimination of human factors engineering problems as employed by the US Coast Guard, which focuses on identifying potential problems and then eliminating them at the design stage. Spatial relationship, operational expectations, the use of feedback, and the elimination of ambiguity are just some of the designer’s considerations.

But if the problem cannot be designed out, it is important, notes this advice, to shield against it, to provide suitable warnings and to provide easily understandable procedures or job aids to permit the operator to avoid the problem. It is food for thought, both for designers and those who will end up purchasing the products being designed!

Designing out future problems