The OpenBridge
Design Guideline

Disclaimer: OpenBridge Design Guideline is a work in progress and it is undergoing continuous development. We encourage you to give us feedback on the ongoing work.The target audience for this documentation is user interface designers. 
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OpenBridge user interface design guideline is a free resource supporting design of state of the art, safe, user friendly and consistent maritime workplaces at a reduced cost.

Inconsistent design across the many systems people use on ships is a major challenge in current maritime industry that lead to human error, loss in efficiency and inefficient training. OpenBridge solves this problem by introducing clear and easy to use design guidelines built on existing standards from the web industries adapted to the Ocean Industries. 
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We strive to make OpenBridge design guidelines compliant with existing maritime regulations. Our intention is to streamline design of approvable user interfaces by making sure that workplaces following OpenBridge design guidelines will also be compliant with current maritime regulation.
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By following OpenBridge design guidelines, vendors will develop effective user interfaces with design that are consistent with all other user interfaces design within the OpenBridge design system. This will secure better user interfaces as well as make the applications relevant for all ship bridges that are OpenBridge compatible. 
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OpenBridge changes how maritime workplaces are designed by dividing the workplace into three main categories of systems (Figure 1). Workplace hardware, integration system and applications. The division is constructed to allow independent development of systems in each category by defining compatible design guidelines in each category. 

Figure1. OpenBridge is constructed around an user interface architecture that divides the workplace into workplace hardware, integration system and applications.

Workplace hardware
All hardware that make up the workplace is considered workplace hardware. This include workplace consoles, chairs and other equipment supporting human operation. In addition it cover all technologies supporting user interfaces, such as screens, buttons, levers and generic interaction devices such as mouse and roller ball. OpenBridge intends to support advanced new user interface hardware such as eye-trackers and augmented reality headsets. 
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This guideline is in development.
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Integration system 
Global functionality shared between applications and definitions of how applications are used through the workplace hardware are governed through the integration system. The integration guideline lays out how to design the integration system in order for it to be able to host OpenBridge compliant applications. OpenBridge integration guidelines will be extended to describe how to make advanced interaction technologies, such as voice commands, consistently available for applications. 
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This guideline is in development. 
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Applications
All systems are mediated to the users through application user interfaces. OpenBridge offer guidelines for how these application should be designed in order to function well on all workplaces hardware in OpenBridge compliant ship bridges. The applications guideline will be extended to descriptions of how applications can take advantage of advances user interface technologies made available in the integration system.