Systems Oriented Design in Maritime Design

The Systems Engineering Conference, 28 - 29 March 2012, London, UK
SYSTEMS ORIENTED DESIGN IN MARITIME DESIGN
B. Sevaldson, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway

A. Paulsen, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway
M. Stokke, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway
K. Magnus, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway
J. Strmsnes, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway
SUMMARY
Systems Oriented Design (S.O.D.) is the designerly way of systems thinking. It is tuned towards working with the
dynamics of human activity systems and its interactions with technology rather than constructing technological systems.
The complexity in modern high end ship building has increased on several fronts. This is especially true for the design of
vessels for very complex offshore operations demanding visualisations of rich information to the officers on the bridge
or other operators and human actors, to facilitate fast and reliable control. A holistic approach to the interplay between
human activity systems and between human and technical systems becomes crucial when regarding e.g. safety.
Such holistic approaches in maritime design are hindered because the production processes are extremely complex.
Customized solutions, dependencies between subcontractors, class rules and safety regulations make innovation
difficult. The result is often a compromise that does not render the optimal solutions. Through focussing also on the
innovation process as a human activity system, involving e.g. the client, class organizations, authorities etc, S.O.D. holds
the promise to help to bridge these problems. Through the visualization of super complexity and visions for the near
future one can communicate and create enthusiasm and willingness to stretch innovation processes across the
organisations, from the board room to the authorities.
The paper will present and discuss some early findings and innovative cases from oil spill recovery and ship bridge
design and discuss how the approach of S.O.D. can contribute to radical innovation in maritime design.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Designers are facing an ever increasing complexity. This

is due to macro changes in society, like increased
demands caused by globalization and the need for
sustainability but also in the specific fields where
technological development and new restrains from
operational procedures have to be included. The field of
maritime design is certainly no exceptions. While these
increased requirements are challenging to cope with they
also provide opportunities to rethink the way we design
in and for the sector. Designers, like industrial designers,
interaction designers and service designers are slowly
gaining a place in the maritime sector not only in what
we might call the experience based part of it, like cruise
ships, and leisure and luxury yachts, but more
interestingly in the parts that are about professional
activities e.g. transportation and offshore operations.
Especially the increasing offshore operations have
developed design for the maritime sector to become ever
more complex.
An increased attention to human factors and user
experience as a safety issue in complex operations has
made the role of the designer more crucial as an
important partner in interdisciplinary design teams
designing e.g. ship bridges.
At the same time this need reflects back onto design
education and profession. Though wested for handling
complexity and fuzzy front end problematics, designers
need to get better at handling super-complexity in a pro-
2012: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
active manner. This means moving form responding to

complexity in a defensive way, preferring simplification,
to embracing complexity by preferring richness. To do
this the designers and the teams need to change attitude
and learn techniques for coping with super-complexity.
These include:
To realize the potential of innovation in a rich

and inclusive approach to complex
problematics.
To actively create a better and richer overview
of the systemic elements and their interrelations.
To draw the boundaries of the project (systems
boundaries) in an informed way instead from
preconceptions.
To be willing to redefine and redraw the
systems boundary when ever needed.
To maintain as many elements in play during
the design process.
To look for and create innovations within the
complexity of the systems at hand.
Systems Oriented Design is one possible approach to

meet these needs. In the following S.O.D. will shortly be
presented and the above aspects discussed through three
cases, one master theses looking at oil spill in a new way
and two projects looking at radical innovation for ship
bridge design, related to the UBC research project
financed by the MAROFF program in the Norwegian
Research Council.
The Systems Engineering Conference, 28 29March 2012, London, UK
2.
SYSTEMS ORIENTED DESIGN
Systems Oriented Design [1] ties design thinking to

systems thinking.
The concept of Design Thinking [2-4] has been on one
side a new hype in business and organizations to induce
change and innovation, on the other it has been criticized
for being superficial and ill-defined. Nevertheless there is
ample proof that designers do have a well developed
ability for dealing with the difficult problems emerging
form super-complexity. This is apparent in the
discussions on design methodology [5-9]. Such
problems that have no singular solution and that escape a
clear problem definition have by design theoreticians
been defined as Wicked Problems [10-11]. Some authors
in design have looked especially into how designers
synthesize solutions from such complex and fuzzy
information and reach better resolutions [12-13]. Design
methodology has moved from being inspired by
engineering methodologies towards developing its own
methods that are more geared towards designing for
wicked and fuzzy problems. [6]. Design research has to a
large degree recognized designing as knowledge
production and accepted Research through (or by)
Design as central starting with reflection in action [9] and
moving towards a rich landscape of approaches and
methods [14]. Systems Thinking has been present all the
way in this development but it never emerged as the
main perspective and method to deal with such problems.
Examples are Christopher Alexander [12], Horst Rittel
[15], Russel Ackoff [16], Wolfgang Jonas [17-18],
Ranulph Glanville [19] and Harold Nelson [20-21].
Despite this, Systems Thinking and Systems Practice has
not made it into everyday design thinking and design
practice. The reason might be that there was never
proposed or demonstrated a specific clear and strong
designerly way of approaching systems thinking.
S.O.D. activates design thinking in analyzing,
understanding and designing for complex systems. It
draws from several sources within the systems movement
such as early systems thinkers especially relevant for
designing [10, 16, 22], writers within design who have
related design thinking to systems thinking [21] and
certain threads in systems thinking to be mentioned here
Soft Systems Methodology [23], Systems Architecting
[24] and Critical Systems Thinking [25] .
One might notice that these sources come from the soft
half of systems thinking. This is a natural consequence of
emphasizing practice and tying together design thinking
and systems thinking. But there is also no need nor an
intention to replace other approaches e.g. systems
engineering. In contrary we think of the designer as
complementary to the other approaches. A need to
combine different roles of hard and soft approaches
is argued for both in Critical Systems Thinking and
Systems Architecting.
Distinctions between Systems Engineering and S.O.D.

are elaborated by Sigrun Lurs [26].
Also S.O.D. is regarded as meta-theory and is not meant
to replace other design perspectives and approaches such
as User-centred Design, Universal Design, Participatory
Design, Service design methodologies such as AT-ONE
[27] or other design or engineering methods and
techniques. S.O.D. provides an over-arching umbrella
where these approaches can be bound together and
contextualized.
For this particular task of S.O.D. we have developed a
series of techniques and methods. For this paper only the
most important and central technique, GIGA-mapping,
will shortly be presented below.
2.1
GIGA-MAPPING
GIGA-mapping [28] is a mapping technique that has

many functions but the main function is to help the
designer to create a detailed overview of the landscape in
which a design project will play out . This implies that
the GIGA-map is much larger than what is strictly
relevant for the project itself. Inspired by other systems
mapping, mind-mapping and concept-mapping
techniques and Rich Picture mapping from Soft Systems
Methodology it departs from those by at least five
features:
1. Size: Since the main purpose of GIGA-maps is to draw
and construct the landscape where the design project
takes place in the most inclusive manner they should be
very big to encompass this landscape and the fields
beyond its boundaries. This addresses both the relevance
problem and the before mentioned boundary problem of
the systems at hand. Both relevance and boundary will
through this process be defined from a more informed
and less preconceived view-point than normal.
2. Free-styling: There are no fixed conventions in GIGAmapping and different types of information should be
layered in the most purposeful way. This should add up
to the thickness of the map indicating layering and
interrelating of many types of information spanning from
technology, economy, sustainability, operation modes, to
social, cultural, and political issues.
3. Process: GIGA-maps are process tools. This means
that they only make much sense for their creators, the
designers, co-designers and collaborators. They are not
designed for communicating complexity to third parties.
They are for designers to internalize complexity or for
groups to align and share rich pictures.
4. Design: GIGA-maps are designed artefacts; they go
through design processes of iterative refinement.
Designing is an integrated way of developing, analyzing
and internalizing the information. Here design thinking
plays out in seamless conjuncture with systems thinking.

GIGA-maps are hence also not only descriptive but
highly generative. E.g. one does not only register existing
relations but designs new ones.
5. Research by Design: GIGA-maps are not sequential
parts in processes, e.g. early research phase. Though they
will often provide a good start for a project they are used
in many stages all the way to implementation and they
are layered with other activities such as sketching
activities, speculations on resolutions and forecasting.
Ideally the process externalizes new knowledge that is
particular for each case but that is possible to be
generalized as a reflection upon design practice.
Designing is an integrated part of this knowledge
production and much of the thinking and knowledge
production is only achieved through this integration of
designing the GIGA-maps and the resolutions in the form
of products, services and systems.
2.2 THE MISSION OF S.O.D IN MARITIME DESIGN

The Mission of S.O.D. is to make designers more able to
design for super-complexity. In the case of the maritime
sector and ship bridges especially we need to design for
complex human activity systems.
We need to look at the complex operation as our design

material and design it for a holistic and integrated point
of view.
In our case the environments for the human activity
systems we are talking of, such as found on ship bridges
involved in complex operations, tend to reach a level of
complexity that makes traditional design processes
insufficient. The resulting environments, composed of
equipment from diverse sub-contractors, fulfilling
regulations of redundancy, results in a lack of integration
and a failure in reaching a good solution that minimizes
stress and the possibilities for misinterpretation and lack
of situation awareness. We need to look again at the
operation as such as a whole and not fractioned and
measured in isolated bits.
S.O.D. intends to design for the whole, from technology
to social engagement, allowing specialists to play out
their expertise within a shared holistic approach.
The following cases will show different aspects of this,
spanning from responding to the risk of oil spill with a
combination of risk calculation and social networking to
looking at the whole of a bridge environment to
exploring new tactile interfaces to widen the band-with
of interfaces in complex operations.
Figure 1: GIGA-map of relations between stakeholders, technologies, operations and responses during a ship accident
resulting in oils spill. (Adrian Paulsen)
3. CASES
3.1. CASE 1: OIL SPILL PREVENTION
This project was firstly aimed at finding examples of
how design processes could add valuable insight to the
current discussion of oil spill recovery and challenge
design methodology on such a complex topic. Previous
research gathered while working on the project BUOY
[29] uncovered an interesting question. Why have the
technology aspects of oil spill recovery been so highly
discussed while the user-centric aspects and community
aspects were missing in most discussions? Based on this
observation a central question was: In what new ways
could this problem be addressed? In order to explore
and understand this specific challenge the project brief
was simply formulated to be: How to reduce the effect
of coastal oil spills?
Major oil spills from ship accidents causes a great deal of
damage on both natural and economic scales. In Norway
a cargo ship called Full City grounded after anchoring
during difficult weather, leaking extensive amounts of oil
into an archipelago in southern Norway causing uproar
of complaints. Although witnesses and authorities
noticed the ship in trouble, important actors were not
aware of the risk this specific ship posed. A central cause
to the extent of environmental damage was not simply
technological limitation, but a lack of communication
before and during the clean up response. The project goal
mentioned above was therefore chosen to not only
challenge the current focus on product solutions for post
accident responses, but also the part that failed with Full
City, the failure of communication, the human centric
systems that could have triggered preventive actions.
System Oriented Design was chosen for this project as a
main methodical approach. Through GIGA-mapping the
aim was to create an overview into the intricate relations
between the many stakeholders, products, processes,
budgets and central to it all; the people. (Figure 1). This
conceptual project would have to apply a high level of
realism and relate to the systemic needs & limitations in
order to achieve relevant results. Mapping would play a
crucial role to quickly build knowledge of this highly
specialized field. GIGA-mapping has the benefit of
documenting very rapid learning processes and the
knowledge level and amount of research that had gone
into understanding the field. This is key if the designer
and his processes want to gain acceptance and influence
when entering new sectors. In addition GIGA-mapping
is essential to push the structure of design process to
make it able to deal with complexity and also make the
complicated process available for dialog in teams during
its development.
In public media the dialog between people involved in oil
spill response normally focuses on when something has
gone wrong or to discuss a lack of funds for upgrades.
There never seemed to be a dialog about preventive
action until after an accident had just happened. From a

design thinking background, where user centric processes
are key, this observation fuelled a curiosity and
motivation to explore this further. The path of exploring
human activity became increasingly interesting when
realizing that available reference projects seemed to
focus on scenarios based on singular products within the
events around an oil spill. There is a lack of a wide and
exploratory project approach, where holistic user and
community oriented thinking was applied.
To bring a broader time-perspective to this project, it also
became very important to give an equal attention to the
time before, during and after the accident. Departing
from a user-centric perspective it was obvious to focus
on the actual users and their daily routines. How could a
design intervention improve their capacity to deal with,
prepare and better understand the risk? Instead of moving
for big changes the project rather explored how their
current structure underlying communication and
collaboration could be improved. Although there are
large amounts of money in this sector in Norway, a
surprisingly small amount is spent on improving e.g. the
response time. The project therefore needed to find the
intervention point where small investments could
generate large improvements.
To validate this starting point the project included
extensive research on oil spill response history [30]. This
survey showed that the field was dominated by product
development of booms (tubular floating devices). This
trend stretched all the way to current development where
the main effort is on perfecting existing products through
increasing their capacity i.e. making them bigger and
adding more technically advanced sensory equipment.
This narrow product development focus does not
necessarily relate well to some of the key aspects of oil
spill response which we defined as prevention strategy
and communication. This represented another
observation fuelling the argumentation that this focus
should be challenged.
When reviewing the oil spill contingency plans [31] their
human recourses strategy there was little focus on user
needs in planning, developing operations and
communicating. Instead of a user-centric approach there
is a top down approach to these factors. These response
plans are usually centred on seasonal risk estimation. But
through their static top-down structure they have a
limited usability in the everyday operation for the staff
on site. By making the process tools static and passive it
limits their capacity to assist workers to relate to risk
levels on a day-to-day basis. Improving on this would
greatly enhance their ability to do their job, but with the
added value of empowering the staff to respond in a
preventive manner and not only after an accident has
occurred.
The static nature of the contingency plans relates poorly
to the risk aspects of oil spills which are highly dynamic.
Oil spill risk levels are the compiled result of seasonal

changes, traffic, weather, local fauna and the availability
of trained and equipped staff including contiguous
technologies and infrastructures and operations like the
immediate availability of tow-boats and pilots. These
factors are dynamic by nature and difficult to overview,
especially when it comes to responsibility and recourse
distribution where even municipality budgets come into
play. But coordinating this dynamic complexity is key. In
the Full City case needed equipment from a neighbouring
municipality was not brought to the site due to a lack of
communisation [32].
When exploring the potential to improve the preventive
measures an important part would be to improve on the
understanding of risk. Therefore Professor Bent Natvig
from the Department of Mathematics at UiO (University
of Oslo) was approached. With his extensive background
in risk analysis he could confirm that a dynamic risk
evaluation in this case was possible. By using an
algorithm for risk calculation we can move towards a
more dynamic representation of risk that could be
simplified and made available to the local response staff.
This additional confirmation allowed the following
project goal formulation to be chosen:
A system for dynamic risk mitigation and resource
allocation to reduce the effects of coastal oil spills,
through enhancing the focus on the human element.
Figure 2: The conceptual dummy for an risk level input /

output unit positioned in the emergency central of a
stakeholder, the local fire department in Brum,
Norway. (Adrian Paulsen)
The next step was to design a series of touch points
where the staff could gain a practical access to the risk
services. This was demonstrated through a conceptual
input/output unit (Figure 2) and an online platform
(Figure 3) the ambition was to help them to gain a better
understanding of dynamic risks and to facilitate a more
practical dialog on a shared platform where cooperation
across municipalities would be encouraged.
Figure 3: Showing the online platform for risk evaluation across different scales spanning form single unit to the
national scale. Risk level display and input unit with its drift-wood casing to the left. (Adrian Paulsen)
Figure 4: Risk evaluation system based on risk algorithm receiving historical data, ship traffic information, weather and
site data. This information is pushed towards the local users who have the ability to respond by adding local knowledge
and observations to the calculation, and to organize preventive early actions. (Adrian Paulsen)
Through creating a shared neutral arena it could also help

to overcome political contradictions and improve the
dialog around risk. The risk algorithm would accept data
from official channels, environmental experts, local staff
and local informal users. (Figure 4)
A key aspect to make this risk system work would be the
actual staff on site. At any moment they are enabled to
influence the risk level based on their local knowledge.
This high resolution input will be provided through a
simple display and button interactions. Their experience
and knowledge network is an extremely valuable
information source that cannot be replaced by the risk
algorithm. The input/output units would be distributed
among the local response groups. The interface is kept
simple and visual to make sure this is a tool with a low
threshold for use. Risk scales would dynamically change
from day to day and the separate unit with an at-aglance-display would secure awareness. Computer
screens tend to be cluttered with other information and in
this case it was considered to be too important to risk that
the information accidentally could be overlooked.
The conceptual product with a drift-wood casing was
made in order to create a tangible and emotional touch
point that in its small way could improve routine and
engagement around risk understanding.
Through the online platform the info would also be

available for the public. Keeping this info available and
open could help involve local informal users like
fishermen or leisure boats who could submit their
observations. This online platform would simply display
the algorithmic risk level and the human influenced level
separate in colour-coded scales. On a practical level this
would allow the neighbouring response units to improve
their communication and therefore also their cooperation.
If one unit reported a higher level of risk, the
neighbouring municipality could react to this, contact
them for an update and be better prepared to assist in
case of an accident.
The central innovation in this project was to introduce
S.O.D. in combination with complex product
development, service design and design thinking to oil
spill response systems to highlight the importance of the
human factor and assist the people who do the work. To
them an improved understanding of risk, recourse
allocation and enhanced dialog represents a very
important tool to move from post-accident cleaning up
and repair actions to pre-accident preventive actions.
3.2. CASES FROM SHIP BRIDGE DESIGN

S.O.D. is the main theoretical and operative approach in
the Ulstein Bridge Concept (UBC) research and
development project. UBC is a four year research and
development project financed by the Research Council of
Norway [33] and Ulstein Power and Control a company
in the Ulstein Group [34], an advanced ship builder
located in West Norway and Kwant Controls [35] from
the Netherlands. The project was preceded by a half year
design pilot conducted by the Oslo School of
Architecture and Design, financed by the Norwegian
Design Council [36] who has been a continuous
supportive partner in the development of S.O.D.
UBC is composed of several elements amongst them a
maritime design lab that is responsible for the
development. These main activities are restricted form
publishing at the current stage. Other activities include
the following design projects by master students which
are not restrained from publication.
3.2.1. CASE 2: FILTERING MARITIME TRADITIONS

In this case S.O.D. was used to both gain an overview of
the whole field of ship building and how a supply vessel
would operate in detail on a mission in the North Sea
(figure 5). Intensive registering of the detailed use of
instruments was conducted with premade investigation
formats (figure 6). Both those information landscapes
were used in the design of a proposal for rethinking the
ship bridge. The S.O.D. method helped the students to
get a full overview of the bridge design, including the

bridge's functions and the human aspects of operations.
Through mapping these factors, issues such as providing
good social environment along with convenient design
regarding ergonomics, overview and information proved
to be of great importance. As there is a lot of static
waiting time during a typical shift, the importance of
being awake and perceptive and read and react to
unexpected situations rapidly may have been
underestimated in the development of high technology
solutions in the maritime design. Though properly
grounded in real life research and other investigations
this is a conceptual project for a ship bridge of the future
where not all issues are addressed equally intensive.
The project evolved through an iterative process, with
mapping, sketching, and discussions, before filtering and
at last synthesizing the thoughts and ideas into one
conceptual proposal. Stakeholders from the Ulstein
research group at AHO, DNV [37], the Norwegian
Design Council, supervisors at AHO and fellow students
were engaged throughout the process. GIGA-mapping
played an important part in discussions with partners and
external contributors, and worked as a fundament for
communicating ideas and findings and at the same time
argueing for decisions made. During this debate various
root definitions and conceptual models where put
forward, modified and developed until a desirable model
was achieved by consensus. This was conducted with the
intent to design and develop a concept built upon strong
arguments. This support has given the opportunity to
expand the process and potentials in the project.
Figure 5: GIGA-map of a off shore mission of a supply ship visiting five offshore installations (Kathinka Magnus &
Maren Moe Stokke)
Figure 6: Pre-made observation cards. Though the cards provided good structure to the survey and secured collection
of basic data they were not sufficient for the richness of observations made when on site. They quickly were used to
collect amounts of additional data and observations. (Kathinka Magnus & Maren Moe Stokke)
The research and mapping process led to several

findings. Some of the most important findings that
brought the project forward, was the observation of weak
points both concerning physical and technical aspects
regarding the whole layout of the bridge. Many elements
are illogically placed, repeated and ergonomically
unsatisfying. Due to new technology, it is now possible
to design in completely different formats. But the ship
bridge design has so far not changed dramatically. This
project challenges the existing paradigms by filtering the
traditions from a critical point of view.
Being aware of physical movement and static/dynamic
working hours the design is generated in a new
direction. By GIGA-mapping the whole field of maritime
design, including historical attributes, some unexpected
innovation were reached. Features of older ship designs
were brought back into the rethinking of how things were
done and taken for granted today. One example was the
reimplementation of the steering wheel where the
thrusters were coupled to a double wheel steering
position in front of the seating positions which were used
in less active transit periods when going under autopilot
or steering with joysticks was more appropriate (figure
7).
The other main innovation that was reached through a

filtering and reinterpretation of older ship building
traditions was the chamfered floor deck of the bridge
(figure 8). This allows for a big advantage in visibility
from the bridge, which was thoroughly documented with
tests.
The use of S.O.D. in the redesign of the ship bridge was
helping to beyond the given framework, pose new
questions and reach at unexpected innovations. But it
also helped to ground the innovations and helped the
students learn this for them completely unknown new
territory in a very fast way. The solutions are thoroughly
grounded in the way ships operate today, the use of
instruments and in bringing traditions forward in new
interpretations and forms. A further development would
also have to take into account more considerations of the
technological and material issues, spatial and interface
requirements. By looking on the whole aspect of living
conditions on a ship and historical research, and by
looking to other similar fields of working intervals the
design focused on the user was of great importance. This
improves the safety and gives the maritime design an
innovative lift.
Figure 7: Plan of the suggested concept bridge and view of the front bridge with the two zones, the navigation zone in
the front, used for active steering of the ship and the observation input zone used for navigation under auto pilot and joy
stick. (Kathinka Magnus & Maren Moe Stokke)
Figure 8: Section views of the champhered ship deck on the bridge. (Kathinka Magnus & Maren Moe Stokke)
Figure 9: GIGA-map drawing the landscape of the project with Kwant Controls being the departure point of the map.
(Jan Kristian Strmsnes)
3.2.2. CASE 3: NAUTICAL CONTROLS FOR THE
FUTURE; HAPTIC FEEDBACK
The last case is also a master project in relation to the
UBC project but this time with the other partner of the
research project, Kwant Controls. Kwant Controls is a
company that develops steering handles and their
speciality is haptic feedback induced through intelligent
and programmable use of stepper motors. They have a
genuine interest in haptic feedback as a field and an
intention to investigate further the use of haptic feedback
in ship controls. S.O.D. was used throughout the process
to widen the horizon of what haptic feedback could be
and of the company and its activities (figure 9).
Though this project admittedly in periods jumped out of
the systems perspective and immersed in product
oriented design, the systemic design thinking helped
thinking out of the box and brake away from traditional

conceptions of haptic feedback systems e.g. vibrations.
The surprising and innovative haptic feedback device
was possible to reach on the bases of the extensive
mapping of human tactile sensory systems (figure 10).
The final design suggestion (figure 11) combined two
haptic principles. The first principle, based on motoric
memory, was using the geometry of the handle
movement that clearly divided this movement into two
parts: lower performance sector with circular movement
similar to a throttle with an axis and a higher
performance sector with a linear throttle action. Here
innovative haptic feedback was induced by the
geometrical change of the movement indicating the
threshold between low energy consumption and high
power and energy consumption through a geometric
difference that is clearly felt.
Figure 10: Mapping out the world of haptic feedback technology. (Jan Kristian Strmsnes)
With repeated use of the handle the operator will

encapsulate a motoric memory, a memory of the body,
helping the driver to use the device intuitively, in the
same way as a driver uses his gear stick in a car, where
he has memorized the positions of the gears in a way that
this memory is encapsulated in body positions.
The second haptic principle was an innovative use of air
flow. The handle surface was perforated with small holes
that would emit a signal in the form of air flow. This was
demonstrated in a rapid prototyping dummy. Though the
features and potential of this new haptic channel are not
yet fully investigated, the dummy demonstrated its

capability to give very precise haptic signals for
additional bandwidth to the sensory information channel.
Early investigations show that the air flow system is
much more precise than vibrations. This needs to be
investigated further. The air flow would add to other
haptic responses e.g. vibrations and stepper motor
resistance like in the products of Kwant Controls.
The concept was pushed further into conceptual
innovative scenarios. One such scenario was that the airflow-based haptic system could be used in emergency
situations, where the haptic air flow could give specific

signals to the hands of the operator combined with
artificial scent modification of the air flow, engaging yet
another sensory channel to alert the crew on the bridge
when the ship is e.g. in danger of heading towards
dangerous waters. Though this concept is quite farreaching it would be not only interesting but potentially
necessary to research such multi sensory approaches
further.
Figure 11: Haptic controller. (Jan Kristian Strmsnes)
With the use of both S.O.D and a product oriented

approach, the student managed to create innovations such
as:
1. Movements in the handle with two divided lower and
higher performance sector.
2. Haptic feedback with use of air flow in the handle.
3. Haptic air flow used as specific signalling in an

emergency setting.
4. Suggesting artificial scent as an additional information
channel in e.g. emergency situations.
S.O.D. in this case clearly helped to create an overview
that was the precondition for thinking out of the box and
reach innovative solutions.
S.O.D. was also used to explore & communicate a
process of branding for Kwant. To build a convincing
case for the company extensive GIGA-maps were
designed where the market situation was communicated.
This allowed for a holistic rethinking of Kwants branding
strategies. Such processes can be a challenging when
designers argue the added value their product
development can generate, but through this mapping it
was translatable to strategy in a visual and available way
to induce a discussion on marketing and branding
strategies. The sum of all these aspects of the project
would help the designer to play a more valuable and
influential role in the process.
In the end a last aspect of the project deserves
mentioning. Early in the research stage the student was
analyzing thirty years of data (excel sheet format) from
the Norwegian Maritime Directorate [38] and used the
S.O.D method to categorize ship accidents. With GIGAmapping the student managed to convert this data into a
holistic and visualized overview. This visualization of
the data had the effect that areas, causes and frequency of
ship accidents was easily understood and communicated
in a faster and accessible way. This beneficial aspect of
information design is often underestimated in complex
development projects (figure 11).
Figure 11: Information visualization can play an important role in super-complex projects to make information instantly
accessible. In this case vast amounts of data from excel sheets was made accessible through information design. (Jan
Kristian Strmsnes)
4.
CONCLUSIONS
The days are early for Systems Oriented Design in the

maritime sector. Though it is based on several existing
and well-proven theories, methods and practices further
research is needed. The presented cases are all more or
less conceptual in the sense that they are research cases
and not commissioned form a client and hence yet not
realized. Nevertheless they demonstrate how S.O.D. can
help to reach at unexpected innovations:
Case 1 showed how the conception of boundaries
restricts necessary innovation in a field and how this can
be turned around when moving and redefining these
boundaries.
Case 2 demonstrated how changing the context and
information used in a super complex design process can
trigger innovation. It also showed how S.O.D. can help in
very rappid learning processes and how to handle
complexity to reach a integrated ship bridge design.
advantage and with thinking holistically which releases

synergies and innovations that are grounded in the
present operation of a client.
5.
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Case 3 showed how moving the horizon of even a small

product oriented project can lead to unexpected
innovations.
Parallel with the presented cases the development of the
UBC research project, commissioned and owned by the
Ulstein Group, is continuing in a fast pace.
The presented cases are pilots to what we are heading for
and what will be developed into implementations in the
ship bridge environment. This process will provide
valuable added testing of the S.O.D. approach.
6.
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8.
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Despite its nature of being pilots the cases demonstrate

clearly some central points in the approach that now have
settled and crystallized as very valuable:
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The value of very rapid learning processes

structured along GIGA-mapping as information
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tool.
The value of generating the whole landscape
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and maintain a holistic overview throughout the
project.
The value of thinking out of the box and
reaching innovations but such innovations that
are grounded and that create synergies within
the system.
The value of binding together designerly
imagination with hard facts, statistical
information, experience from field trips, expert
knowledge etc and synthesises this to reach new
unexpected but fairly grounded innovations.
12.
S.O.D. is about the designer taking more responsibility

for the whole sustainability of a project, its green aspects
as well as its economic or technological aspects.
Responsibility comes with gaining a knowledge
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AUTHORS BIOGRAPHY
Birger Sevaldson PhD is professor at the Institute of

Design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design
and visiting professor at the lesund University College.
He has defined Systems Oriented Design. He was
initiating and leading the UBC research project in
collaboration with the Ulstein ship yard and financed by
the MAROFF program of the Norwegian Research
Council.
www.birger-sevaldson.no
www.systemsorienteddesign.net
Adrian Paulsen is a designer with an MA from the Oslo
School of Architecture and Design (AHO), working
amongst others in the field of oil spill prevention. He is a
lecturer at AHO teaching S.O.D: and service design. He
is responsible for case 1
Maren Moe Stokke is a design student (MA) at the Oslo
School of Architecture and Design. She has been
studying S.O.D. in the context of the UBC research
project with Ulstein Power and Control as partner, and is
responsible for case 2.
Kathinka Magnus is a design student (MA) at the Oslo
School of Architecture and Design. She has been
project with Ulstein Power and Control as partner, and is
Jan Kristian Strmsnes is a design student (MA) at the

Oslo School of Architecture and Design. He has been
project with Kwant Controls as partner, and is

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The Systems Engineering Conference, 28 - 29 March 2012, London, UK

B. Sevaldson, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway

Designers are facing an ever increasing complexity. This

2012: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects

active manner. This means moving form responding to

To realize the potential of innovation in a rich

Systems Oriented Design is one possible approach to

The Systems Engineering Conference, 28 29March 2012, London, UK