OICL field study handbook for performing field studies in the ocean industries
This online handbook is intended for designers and engineers, to share our experience with performing field studies for the ocean industries.
Why learning how to perform field studies for the ocean industries
Ocean industries involve complex operations, often in safety-critical conditions. Workplaces where such operations are performed are pervaded with technology distributed in many different systems. Designing for such workplaces is a challenge for designers. At the same time, there is a growing number of designers working with projects in the ocean industries. With the OICL field study handbook, we aim at sharing processes, observation and analysis methods, to design for the users of advanced workplaces in the ocean industries.
The foundation to our approach is the use of field studies as a central part of human-centred design process. Ocean industry leaders acknowledge that designers need an onsite comprehension of complex operations and tasks that ranges across systems and varied conditions. Field studies play a critical role in acquiring contextual, systems-oriented and human-centred knowledge from demanding operations. With the OICL field study handbook, our ambition is to share our experience with planning, performing and analysing field studies.
Why you should learn to perform field studies with our handbook
The OICL field study handbook is based on a 10-day course that we hold at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design and over 10 years experience with field studies for the ocean industries. In the course, we bring design students trained as industrial designers, interaction designers, and service designers onboard a ship to perform a field study, and then work with the field study data. A ship offers the perfect conditions to learn how to conduct a field study for design: it is an environment that designers are not used to, and when the ship is out at sea, the designers need to embrace their field work: there is no other place to go.
Because field studies impact the work of designers through giving them new and different experiences, as well as insight and knowledge to build their designs on, our approach to learning field studies is based on experiencing the field, and carrying out field work in a challenging context. As a result, our approach follows the process of planning, performing and analysing a real field study, and we strongly recommend that you do the same in your learning process. This is the way we are performing field studies for design processes in all our research projects at the Ocean industries concept lab.
Is this handbook for you?
The handbook is designed for people who are committed to learning to perform field studies, to use them in the context of designing for advanced workplaces in the ocean industries. As such the handbook will assist principally industrial and interaction designers, but also human factors specialists and engineers. We strongly recommend all maritime engineering, naval architecture, offshore engineering students (and their teachers) to consider adding field studies to their skill set, and learn to design technology from the premise of the technology users, in their context of use.
The field study process does not require previous experience in carrying out field studies. However we recommend to have at least one experienced team member in your project, because doing field studies is a craft, and crafts are best learned by supervision and getting feedback from someone more experienced. Some methods require specific training, and the handbook will give a few pointers on how to improve your skills in specific methods. As everything else, practice makes perfect. When we work with industrial partners on field studies, we offer coaching throughout the whole process.
How to use the handbook
The handbook is built in a non-linear fashion, meaning that you can start with any chapter you want. We are presenting the chapters as layers that give the readers a different angle of attack to the practice of field studies. The handbook is organised in 4 layers: process, model, method, case.
The process layer guides you through the whole sequence of what happens before, during and after a field study. It introduces the critical aspects and key success factors for each main phase of the process.
The model layer introduces the two models we have developed to practice and teach the use of field studies. The model of design-driven field research guides the designers through data collection, design reflection and experiencing the field. The operation-architecture framework is a model that guides the designers through the analysis of field data and its integration with other design activities further downstream in the design process.
The method layer is a collection of practical tools to implement these two models. We explain how each tool is connected to the overall process, and give recommendations for how to make the most out of each tool.
The case layer gives real examples of use of the process and the tools in actual design processes. For each case we present the specific methods we used, what we learned about using the methods and what the methods enabled us to do. We also use the cases to reflect upon the types of field studies and associated design activities a design team can engage with.
Credits
The OICL field study handbook is a continuation of the research project ONSITE. The handbook builds upon research and experience at OICL from ONSITE and our other projects. Most of its content was written with contributions from Sigrun Lurås, Kjetil Nordby and Etienne Gernez.
