Mapping Human-Centred Design in innovation-driven Projects: an HRL assessment of an autonomous ferry and remote operations centre concept

The rapid pace of technological development in the maritime sector is driving transformative changes across sociotechnical systems,as autonomous vessel, remote operations, and control infrastructures are developed. However, innovation efforts often focus on the technology itself, leaving critical human factors (HF) aspects underdeveloped. This extended abstract presents a case study from the development of an autonomous urban passenger ferry and its associated remote operations center (ROC), in which the Human Readiness Level (HRL) framework (HFES/ANSI 400-2021) was applied to assess human-system readiness, consolidate earlier Human-Centered Design (HCD) efforts, and guide future development.Although the ferry system had reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4–5, our HRL assessment revealed that human readiness had not kept pace. HRL 1 and 2 activities—such as defining user needs, human roles, operational contexts, and early interaction concepts—had been partially addressed across various HCD efforts. However, HRL 3 activities are intended to establish validated human-system interaction concepts through structured analyses of tasks, cognitive demands, operational scenarios, and human performance metrics. In this case, HRL 3 was not fully met: key gaps included the absence of formal task and cognitive task analyses, limited definition of supervisory roles and transitions between automation modes, and a lack of traceable performance measures related to operator workload, situation awareness, and risk-critical scenarios.Extensive HCD and HF activities had been carried out throughout the project, often by different contributors at different times, with a certain fragmentation as a result. The HRL framework, even though it was in part used as a retrospective checklist, provided a structured mechanism to consolidate insights, identify latent risks, and re-establish a baseline for continued HCD and human-system integration work. Its staged exit criteria helped the team see where human readiness had failed to keep pace with system development, and where further work was needed in usability, safety, and regulatory compliance.To build on HRL 1–2 progress, structured HF methods, including CRIOP scenario analysis, operator workload mapping, scenario desciptions, and documentation of design assumptions were conducted to begin fulfilling HRL 3 requirements. These activities clarified cognitive demands, roles, and safety-critical transitions, and created a compiled evidence base that can support continued validation efforts toward HRL 4 and beyond.As part of this work, a preliminary set of human factors design guidelines was derived from the HRL mapping process. These address safety, efficiency, and user acceptance concerns, and aim to support future iterations through clear principles for interface design, operator training, situational awareness, emergency protocols, accessibility. The guidelines are intended as a living reference for designers and engineers working on remote and autonomous maritime systems. Even in projects with strong HCD ambition, the absence of structured integration and traceability mechanisms can make it difficult to maintain continuity, especially in innovation-driven or academic environments where project goals evolve and team members may change over time. In this case, the HRL framework helped tie fragmented contributions together and provided a foundation for planned, traceable HF integration. It also supported cross-team alignment, and a form of quality assurance , capabilities that can be increasingly valuable in AI-enabled, high-tech development settings such as maritime autonomy, where there are also eveloving regulations. Our findings reinforce the growing view that HRL is not only a diagnostic tool but also a forward-looking framework that makes human-system integration more visible, traceable, and auditable throughout complex development processes.