Human-centred ship engine rooms

We documented the experience of ship crew working in the engine room in a field study and used the results to create new concepts for improved experiences.

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This case is an example of what we call “explorative field study”: a field study where the scope is rather broad, and the goal is to explore and document an unfamiliar context. The field study plan document stated the following scope: “How do the engine room crew use the engine room?”

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Before the field study

This was our first field study in a ship engine room, so we started basically from scratch. So we began by interviewing a researcher expert in field observations in engine rooms. We asked the expert: what are the typical work tasks executed by an engine crew? What systems can we expect them to use? How would you recommend to go about documenting the tasks and the systems?

We summed up the insights from this interview in an observation guide for ship engine rooms that indicated what we could expect to observe, as a function of where and when the observation would be carried out. Because the engine room is a critical organ of the ship, we also planned to carry out observations in the ship bridge and the ship engine control room, from where the ship captain and the chief engineer are in contact with the engine room. We structured the potential observations along a timeline that followed the ship operations: at harbour, unloading & loading cargo, harbour manoeuvres & transit, and so on.

Interviewing a subject matter expert saved us a lot of time and gave us precious information. Writing an observation guide helped us building the field study planning document, and it served as reference during the field study when we had to improvise away from the plan.

As part of the field study preparation, we then visited the office and workshop of the company that was sponsoring the field study. We learned how they worked, what challenges they had, what information from the field they were interested in. We gathered this information through an interview, and a walk-through of their workshop.

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During the field study

We used a combination of silent observation, participatory observation, shadowing/walk-through and interviews. Silent observation was used to get familiarised with the ship environment, and during operations that did not allow for interacting with the ship crew, for example during safety-critical operations, or when the noise level did not allow for discussions, as that was the case when we were close to running engines. To deal with noise level problems we would plan an observation session with the crew beforehand, perform the observation in silence, and then debrief with the crew in a place where the noise level allowed to talk.

Shadowing, walkthrough and participatory observations were used for most of the time. Shadowing consists of following a user without asking questions, just documenting what she or he is doing. In a walkthrough, the field researcher also follows the user, but this time the user is explaining what she or he is doing. In that sense it is a form of participatory observation where the field researcher is observing and asking questions.

When performing these types of observation in an unfamiliar context, you do not necessarily know where the user your are following will take you and what she or he will show you. In my case I worked with work tasks that would take place every day, and I found it very useful to repeat the same observations every day. This gave me the chance to observe variations from day to day, and I quickly became familiar with the environment. This also prepared me for observations that were not planned, or that would not be part of the daily routines.

I found that formal interviews were too intimidating for most of the crew, so I turned them into more casual chats, while still informing clearly my informants about what I was interested in and what I would do with the information they would provide me. One evening, while discussing with the chief engineer in the engine control room, the captain came down after his watch on the bridge and I had the chance to interview them both at the same time. This field study lasted for five days, and I was carrying it alone, so my strategy was to spend as much time as possible with my main informants, to be able to capture all these moments that are impossible to plan ahead.

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After the field study

The central activity in the post field study process is the “collaborative data analysis”. A workshop is usually expensive to carry out because it can take up to a day and involve many participants. Here are a few techniques we used in that case to make the best out of the workshop.

First, we made sure to invite participants who had the required mandate and competence to explore problems and implement solutions. Then, we prepped each workshop participant individually. We edited together a short video clip with the most important findings from the field study, and used it as the starting point for a Skype conversation with each participant. We asked if they were aware of the type of situation we had documented, and what did they think of the situation. What might be the reason for such a situation? What might be done about it? The goal here is to build up the interest, curiosity and motivation of the workshop participants, and to make sure that when the workshop starts, everybody is up to speed and has had time to think about the workshop topics.

Before the workshop, we also prepared visual concepts to synthesise the ideas that had been discussed so far. The visuals were used during the workshop to support the discussions, by referring to specific ideas and to trigger further ideation processes by criticising and improving the ideas. The workshop was documented with photos and videos, and a summary was shared with all the participants after the workshop.

We followed up the workshop with a prototyping session. If prototyping can be already carried out during the workshop it is great; if not, it is important to plan a dedicated session for it soon after the workshop.

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Reflections

Although the case was of an exploratory nature, we managed to land on specific concepts. In such exploratory field studies, it is important to follow a structured approach to innovation, planning for enough time to work with the project stakeholders before and after the field study.

My most important take-away from this case is to work with reframing the challenges observed on the field into innovation opportunities. When doing this, it is important to think about the observed problems as a family of problems: what is the common root to the observed problems? Which project stakeholder is in power to improve the situation? How to empower this person?

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Further reading

The case is described in detail here (Medium post), and here (Conference article). Etienne Gernez’s PhD thesis explores in details how this case was used to derive the OPAR model.

You can read more about “collaborative data analysis” in the article below and in the chapter about the post-field study process:

Millen, D. R. (2000). Rapid ethnography: time deepening strategies for HCI field research. In D. Boyarski & W. A. Kellogg (Eds.), DIS ’00 Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (pp. 280–286). https://doi.org/10.1145/347642.347763