Human Centred Design (HCD) is an approach, which focuses on making systems usable by applying Human Factors (HF), Ergonomics, and usability knowledge and techniques during design. One foundation of this approach is an understanding of the situation in which the product will be used; the context of use (CoU).

A "CoU in Ship Design" workshop was conducted with 50 final year Bachelor of Engineering undergraduate students in the Australian Maritime College to investigate and stimulate their CoU knowledge. Students were asked to build low fidelity prototypes of selected work contexts on ships, and to prepare mobile phone videos of a scenario. A team of six subject matter experts were available as end users, for consultation.

Low fidelity prototype and video analysis, questionnaire findings and workshop observations show that the students' understanding of situations on ships could be improved. However these finding contain some elements of the context in many cases - more on general layout and crew members present, less on crew roles. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate the need to include HF and HCD theoretical underpinnings in undergraduate Maritime Design Engineering syllabi.