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Graphic Products Evaluation Techniques


Learning objectivesL

earn

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ob

ject

ives


To understand the importance of evaluation at different stages of design.

To learn how to evaluate existing products in order to help develop your own design ideas.

To understand the importance of evaluation during the development stage.

To understand the importance of evaluating quality and of quality control.

To learn how to evaluate your end product.


It is important that you not only evaluate your final product at the end, but that you evaluate your ideas and designs throughout the development stage.

It can also be very useful to analyse other people’s products to assess their strengths and weaknesses, before coming up with your own design.

Evaluation should assess your product against your original aims and objectives to ensure that your end result meets the requirements you set yourself at the start.

The client/customer should also evaluate your final product to ensure that all objectives are met.

Evaluation

Evaluation is essential for all graphic products.


Evaluation


Research – evaluating existing products

At the start of your project, you should take time to properly research and evaluate similar products that are already on the market.

You can research other products using:

books and magazines

the Internet

visits to shops.

When you have identified the products most relevant to your design, you should analyse them in detail.

If possible, you should buy examples of competitor products that you can then disassemble. This will allow you to investigate how they have been made.


When you analyse products, you need to distinguish between quality of design and quality of manufacture.

Form

Function

Aesthetics

Ergonomics

Decoration

Materials

Finish

Accuracy

Quality

Detail

You should analyse a number of products. This can be done in a variety of ways. You could give each product a score out of 5 or 10 for each aspect, or you could jot down comments.

Design Manufacture

Quality of design and manufacture


When analysing the quality of a design, you should investigate a number of factors.

Quality of design


Finish – What is the quality of the finish like? Explain the finish used and its overall impact on the success of the product.

Quality – What is the overall manufacturing quality like? Will the product break easily?

When analysing the quality of manufacture, you should look at a set of slightly different factors. A product may be well designed, and yet be manufactured very badly.

Quality of manufacture

Accuracy – Are all aspects accurately manufactured? Do the components fit together properly?

Detail – Have all of the details been added, or have corners been cut?


Before you began your design ideas, you will have produced a detailed specification. This is a detailed list of requirements that your final product must meet.

It is crucial that you keep this list fresh in your mind and continue to evaluate your work against it throughout the project.

Specification checks are crucial throughout your ideas, development and prototyping stages. They help to ensure that you are staying on track, and that your final design and model will meet the objectives that you set yourself at the start.

Specification checks


The easiest way to carry out specification checks is by using a table. The table should allow you to:

The next two slides contain examples of some specification check tables. You should use similar tables to perform specification checks on your designs and models.

clearly see your specification requirements

evaluate your ideas, development or prototyping easily against each specification point

see at a glance the areas that need to be developed further to meet the specification

see at a glance the most successful designs or prototypes at that point.



Specification Points

Initial Idea

1 2 3 4 5 6

1) Must use primary colours

2) Must use cartoon characters

3) Must weigh less than 50 g

4) Must have room for nutritional info

5)

6)

7)

8)

TOTALSTo use this table, you would take each of your initial design ideas and

assign it a number. You would then evaluate each idea against each of your design specification points. You can add up the totals at the bottom

to see at a glance which idea is the most successful.

Specification checks – initial ideas

2 3 3 4 1 2


Use the specification check to help you to decide which ideas should be developed further.

Once you have developed some of your designs, you should check them against your specification again to make sure you are moving in the right direction.

You should do a specification check on your models and prototypes too.



Quality control and Quality assurance are essential for any product, whether it’s a school project or the launch of the latest pair of Nike trainers. If the quality is not up to scratch, you will be let down by the product.

Quality Assurance This refers to the systems you put in place to make sure all your products are good quality. It includes the development and prototyping of the product, which should ensure that the design is of high quality. It also includes making sure that the manufacturing process is set up to produce quality products

every time.

Quality ControlThis is the process of checking products to make

sure high quality is maintained.

Quality control and quality assurance


Your final products need to be tested to make sure they are all of good quality.

When you are testing the quality of a product, you should consider the criteria that it needs to fulfil. Here are some attributes that are often tested:

You should test each attribute to a specified tolerance.

The tolerance determines the level of inaccuracy you are willing to accept. For example, if a product should be 10 cm long, you might decide that products between 9.9 cm and 10.1 cm are good enough to sell. The tolerance is 9.9-10.1 cm.

Size Function

Appearance

Quality control

Weight


Games Ltd measure each die and check its colour before it is dispatched for sale.

They decide that their dice should not be smaller than 18 mm3 or larger than 22 mm3. If a die does not fit within this tolerance it cannot be sold.

The company compares each die against shades of scarlet – the tolerance is set as lying between two particular shades. If the die does not fall between the two shades, it cannot be sold.

Games Ltd manufacture dice. Each die should be 20 mm3 and painted ‘scarlet red’ with white dots.

Quality control


Quality control


There are two types of physical testing that can be carried out:

DESTRUCTIVE TESTINGIn destructive testing, a product is put under stresses until it is destroyed. This allows you to establish exactly how much force a product can withstand.

NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTINGIn non-destructive testing, you test a

product to ensure that it functions correctly – the product will not normally be damaged by this.

Testing and evaluation


If you want to destructively test a product then you apply extreme conditions and record the amount of force it takes to destroy the product.

If the product is well designed, you will need to apply extreme pressures that are much greater than the forces that the product would normally encounter in real life situations.

When you test non-destructively, you are testing how the product functions under normal conditions. This does not normally destroy the product.

Non-destructive tests can include testing a product’s appearance, its measurements and its functionality.

Testing and evaluation


Final evaluation

Once you have made your final product, you should evaluate it thoroughly. Don’t just consider how well it works, but also how well it meets the need that it was designed to satisfy. This final evaluation is broken into three parts.

Evaluate it one last time against the specification – look back at your initial specification requirements. Have you fulfilled them all?

Get feedback from the end user – can the product be successfully used by the user? Is the customer happy?

Evaluate it personally – are you happy with your product? Is there anything you wish you’d done differently, or any problems you didn’t fully solve?

Final evaluation


The end user should play a critical role in the testing and evaluation of your designs, developments, prototyping and finally your manufactured products.

You can get feedback from end users in a number of ways.

You can ask them questions using:

You can also perform a ‘user trip’ – you observe the end user using the product and note their reactions. You can also perform a user trip by placing yourself in the role of the user and recording your observations.

a questionnaire about the product

an interview about the product.

End user evaluations


It is important that a variety of users are consulted. The end users you consult should be from all of the different age groups, genders and backgrounds within your target market – it is important that your product is tested by all groups of prospective users.

Remember to consult your user / client / customer throughout your project to ensure your product is a success.

It is essential that you take on board end user feedback. There is no point developing a product that you like, but your target market doesn’t.



Key pointsK

ey p

oin

ts


It is important to evaluate your work at all stages of the design process.

You should evaluate existing products to help you to develop your own design ideas.

Specification checks should be used during development to make sure that your design is moving in the right direction.

Quality assurance and quality control techniques must be used to ensure that all your products are manufactured to a high standard.

At the end of your project, you need to evaluate your product one more time. End user feedback should form an important part of this.

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