A ship bridge may be looked upon as a compromise between the ideas of the designers and equipment manufacturers on one hand and the seamanship of the end-users on the other. How electronic navigation tools and the overall bridge system is designed influence operators sensemaking - their possibility to assert meaning to their environment and the situation at hand. Inappropriate technical or functional design may be the result of a combination of factors. It may be difficult for designers and engineers involved in bridge design to foresee how the technology will be used in a context they are not familiar with and do not easily have access to. Involving the end-users in the design process may reveal aspects of the real-world context and end-user preferences otherwise not accessible to “outsiders”. One such aspect is seamanship – the informal ideas, values and norms that contribute to how work is performed and how professionals adapt technology and procedures to their work situation. These adaptations reflect the gap between technology-as-designed and technology-as-used. This article reports from the ongoing project SMACS – Sensemaking in Safety-critical situations, which aims to contribute to reduce the gap between design intentions and operative experience. A qualitative research approach has been applied and the data collected so far from observations and interviews on board maritime vessels is presented and discussed.