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Ocean Industries Concept Lab

We are a research group committed to develop knowledge that support user centered innovation processes in the maritime domain. Ocean Industries Concept Lab (OICL) is located at Institute of Design at Oslo School of Architecture and Design. The group is rooted in design practices such as industrial, interaction, graphic and service design and carries out projects in close collaboration with leading industry actors.

Digital innovation has a tremendous impact on the Ocean Industries. However, the rapid change enabled by digital innovation, have in many cases made people the bottleneck for new innovation. In short there is a gap between digital innovation in the maritime industries and people’s ability to use these solutions safely and efficiently in practice. We argue the industry has to change approach to human centered innovation in order to take advantage of digitization and new enabling technologies for safer and more efficient workplaces.

The lab

Our lab includes a multidisciplinary group of designers, engineers and researchers. The lab hosts state of the art prototyping equipment such as mixed reality technologies and simulators. In addition we have access to state of the art rapid prototyping and workshop facilities.

We have excellent access to ships through our partner network and we carry out many field studies as part of our work. The insights from field studies are integrated with design processes in our design lab.

Results and research outputs

We have a diverse set of outputs from our research and innovation work. In addition to reports and journal articles, we have delivered a range of innovative solutions in recent years.

Most recently we have been developing the OpenBridge Design system which aim is to realize consistent user interfaces across all systems on a ship. ODES is the first open maritime design system of its kind.