Still Unresolved After All These Years: Human-Technology Interaction in the Maritime Domain

Over the last decades there has been a steady increase in digitalized products, applications and services introduced to ship’s bridges with the intent to reduce workload and increase safety. However, new technology come with unexpected effects. The current study involves data collected from field trips on board five ships and semi-structured interviews with 21 seafarers. The results show that the human-technology interaction on ship bridges still is a challenge for the seafarers. However, the seafarers see it as part of their professional role to manage and adapt to the equipment or system they have at hand to get the job done. In this paper this ability to handle and make sense of technology is analysed through the notion of seamanship. To find ways to reduce the gap between technology-as-used and technology-as-designed future research should be directed towards the many stakeholders involved in ship bridge design.