Help with my research

[frens]

Hello divers,

I’m a student at the Technical University Delft and doing my master ‘Design for Interaction’ at the Industrial Design faculty. I’m working on a course which is called ‘Exploring interactions’ and focused myself on the interaction underwater between divers as you can’t communicate verbally.

I have some questions and would like you to share your experiences with me. This will help me a lot to come a step closer to realizing my goal which is:

- making it easier to communicate clearly underwater
- making it easier to attract your dive buddy’s attention to share your experience (for example showing a rare/interesting fish, piece of coral or if you have problems with your gear or body)

The questions are:

1. How do you attract the attention from your dive buddy and what are the problems with doing this?
2. How do you communicate to him/her what you want to say?
3. How often does the other person don’t know what you mean? Is there a lot of miscommunication underwater?
4. What are the biggest restrictions under water to express yourself to an other diver (dive buddy)?
5. Is the hand sign ‘language’ known by every diver, is it a standard?
6. Do you use any communication or attracting tools and which ones?
7. Have you been in a dangerous situation and do you behave/communicate differently in such a situation?

Thank you,

Frens Pries

 

[Sas]

1. How do you attract the attention from your dive buddy and what are the problems with doing this?

I tap him on the shoulder, or tug his fin. We pretty much always dive within reaching distance so do not have problems attracting each other's attention.

2. How do you communicate to him/her what you want to say?

Hand signals mainly. On deeper dives we bring slates. Sometimes finger spelling with sign language but this is rare.

3. How often does the other person don’t know what you mean? Is there a lot of miscommunication underwater?

Very rarely, though sometimes with something new it can take a bit longer to convey meaning. But we never problems again with something we have had trouble with before as we always talk about any problems communicating after the dive and come up with more signs for what we were trying to say.

4. What are the biggest restrictions under water to express yourself to an other diver (dive buddy)?

I am not really sure what this question is asking... Most obviously you can't talk so that is a big restriction. You are also limited when using hand signals to a few words at a time to convey what you would usually use a sentence or two on the surface but I don't see this as a problem.

5. Is the hand sign ‘language’ known by every diver, is it a standard?

Again not 100% sure what you mean with this question. Me and my buddy have a lot of custom signs for things such as camera setting questions, silly ones for critters, also a ranking scale for critters so if one of us is photographing one, we know what is worthwhile interrupting the pictures for (i.e. octopus beats squid, squid beats fish, etc). All our other signs are fairly standard though and I have not had issues when diving with other buddies using standard hand signs.

6. Do you use any communication or attracting tools and which ones?

No, unless a slate counts?

7. Have you been in a dangerous situation and do you behave/communicate differently in such a situation?

Yes but I communicated in the same way as normal.

Hope that helps!

 

[h90]

Hello divers,

I’m a student at the Technical University Delft and doing my master ‘Design for Interaction’ at the Industrial Design faculty. I’m working on a course which is called ‘Exploring interactions’ and focused myself on the interaction underwater between divers as you can’t communicate verbally.

I have some questions and would like you to share your experiences with me. This will help me a lot to come a step closer to realizing my goal which is:

- making it easier to communicate clearly underwater
- making it easier to attract your dive buddy’s attention to share your experience (for example showing a rare/interesting fish, piece of coral or if you have problems with your gear or body)

The questions are:

1. How do you attract the attention from your dive buddy and what are the problems with doing this?
2. How do you communicate to him/her what you want to say?
3. How often does the other person don’t know what you mean? Is there a lot of miscommunication underwater?
4. What are the biggest restrictions under water to express yourself to an other diver (dive buddy)?
5. Is the hand sign ‘language’ known by every diver, is it a standard?
6. Do you use any communication or attracting tools and which ones?
7. Have you been in a dangerous situation and do you behave/communicate differently in such a situation?

Thank you,

Frens Pries

Maybe also look into the signals people who can't hear use. Under water they can express themself the same as on the land.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

1. How do you attract the attention from your dive buddy and what are the problems with doing this? Simple touch my buddy, tug on buddy's fin, or wave like a crazy person!
2. How do you communicate to him/her what you want to say? hand signals or with underwater slate.
3. How often does the other person don’t know what you mean? Is there a lot of miscommunication underwater? Usually we understand each other, otherwise the slate comes out.
4. What are the biggest restrictions under water to express yourself to an other diver (dive buddy)? New or made up on the spot hand signals.
5. Is the hand sign ‘language’ known by every diver, is it a standard? Many hand signals seem universal, but my dive buddy sometimes just makes them up (LOL)
6. Do you use any communication or attracting tools and which ones? An underwater slate that can be cleared/erased.
7. Have you been in a dangerous situation and do you behave/communicate differently in such a situation? Only once, my dive buddy had a bit of a panic attack and wasn't making any sense and would not pay attention to me. We had forgotten our slate. I was getting low on air. I was almost ready to just begin my ascent when my dive buddy snapped out of it and we did ascend together. We had a very long discussion after the dive.

 

[JMcD]

Ever played charades? It can sometimes be like that for an out of the oprdinary message; however, there are a fairly standard set of hand signals that most divers know. Any seach on the internet will find a PDF or post on them.

Signaling numbers (e.g. Air Pressure) Seems to be one of the less standardized that I think requires good clarity before a dive. If diving with a new buddy I will review signals so we share expectations.

Getting attention is generally easy given the close proximity of your buddy. Id trying to signal a divemaster out in from of a group, it can then be a wave / etc. There are also underwater noise makers for signaling - some like a metal tube with bearings in it that "clack" and some that connect to your air source that make a duck like "quack" - commonly referred to as a subduck. Metal object (back of dive knife) struck against tank... etc.

As mentioned slates can come in handy, but are not used a great dael - during a dive isn't a time for a conversation so communication is structured around the dive - "you ok?", "yes I'm Ok", "How much air do you have?" "I have 2,000PSI", "Danger there", "Look there", "Somethings wrong with my Ear"... Some signals are used to express a specific animal type...

Miscommunication in the water tends to occur bacause of a failure to communicate above the water before diving...

My $0.02

 

[rstofer]

Thrre is also a small plastic ball with bungie cord that can be mounted to a tank. This will make a definite noise. So will tapping the tank with the butt of a knife.

Communications, though limited, have never really been a problem. In fact, it is pretty nice to be underwater where it is quiet - except for air exhausting from the regulator.

Richard

 

[cflJason]

1. How do you attract the attention from your dive buddy and what are the problems with doing this?

With a tank banger or a quacker. If close enough, you can touch them. Problem with touching is you need to be really close (my arms are short ;-) Problem with the quacker and tank banger is that everybody else uses them too. So you never know who is banging or quacking. They do make full face masks with radios so you can actually talk, but they are very expensive.

2. How do you communicate to him/her what you want to say?

All open water students learn basic hand signals, like "ok" or "somehting wrong" or "out of air" etc. Also the use of an underweter writing slate is helpful.

3. How often does the other person don’t know what you mean? Is there a lot of miscommunication underwater?

It can happen. It's kind of hard to hand signal the irrelevant stuff like "what do you want to eat after the dive", but the relevant stuff like "look that way" are pretty well known with divers.

4. What are the biggest restrictions under water to express yourself to an other diver (dive buddy)?

The fact that if you want to actually talk, you need to spend a lot of money of full face masks with radios. Also, every person you want to talk to would need the same setup.

5. Is the hand sign ‘language’ known by every diver, is it a standard?

There are some basic hand signals that every divers learns (see answer to #2 above)

6. Do you use any communication or attracting tools and which ones?

Quacker, tank banger, underwater writing slates, hand signals.

7. Have you been in a dangerous situation and do you behave/communicate differently in such a situation?

Nothing that was immediately life threatening. Though I have seen divers start breathing really heavy and eyes get really big when they see something they never have before, like a shark.

 

[frens]

Thank you for sharing your answers. I would like to show you guys the poster which I made and used for the first presentation. I only first need 5 forum posts to add URL's. So this is kind of a way to get around that rule. Sorry for the useless posts.

 

[frens]

Hello again,

We had our first poster presentation and our tutors were really happy with our first approach and findings. New insights are gained which led to new questions.. Hopefully you guys can help me out with these too.

1. What were the most difficult or scaring parts of learning to dive?
2. Are there any tricks or methods to regulate your breath and to be “totally” relaxt under water?
3. How do you cope with your buoyancy and floaty feeling/movement under water?

Thank you guys again.

Frens

 

[Anony]

1. What were the most difficult or scary parts of learning to dive?
difficult: For me it is the weights. I drop them. I am trim and I seem to have taken to diving wonderfully in every other way.
The most scary thing for me is the thought that I might make a careless mistake and hurt someone/myself.

2. Are there any tricks or methods to regulate your breath and to be “totally” relaxt under water?
Sometimes I will do a bit of math or other meditation. I try not to think about regulating my breath underwater, as any strategy i might apply would disagree with the demands of my anatomy and possibly put me in danger. imho my body is very good at regulating it's own gas needs.
edit: Calm came with experience, still needs work.

3. How do you cope with your buoyancy and floaty feeling/movement under water?
It doesnt bother me. Actually feels quite nice, like I can fly. I hear long boat rides out to dive sites are what usually cause seasickness.

as for communication (If you are still interested),
We use flashlights to get eachother's attention and we have both learned the ASL alphabet in case we need to communicate words.