Objective B: Developing ideas

The design consists of three tasks:

Design specification

Creating three designs of your product with annotations/explanations

Creating a design of your brochure/magazine and evaluate designs against the specification to

identify the most feasible solutions

Develop a design specification that clearly states the success criteria for the design of a solution

List the specific requirements that must be met by the solution based on the data collected and presented.

Students must have completed objective A and move on to objective B—they have carried out their research and

developed a summary of their findings.

What is a design specification?

A specification is a set of considerations, constraints and requirements for a solution: what the solution must or

must not have to be successful. A specification is not a description of the outcome. It should demonstrate that

students understand the needs of the problem that they have identified. Every aspect of a specification must be

specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and testable (SMART).

The specification should be directly connected to the design brief. Writing a specification can be a difficult job if the

design brief is not well researched and written. If a solution or design fails to meet an aspect of the specification, it

can be considered that it has not met the criteria for success.

Students will need to refer back to the specification throughout the project, particularly when developing ideas and

evaluating the solution.

When writing a specification, students should consider including details addressing the aspects in the table below.

Aesthetics Consider appearance, style, colour, shape/form, texture, pattern, finish, layout.

Cost Is there a maximum cost? Is this a material cost/time cost/selling cost?

Customer Who it is for? What is the target user’s age, gender, socio-economic background?

Environmental

considerations

Where will the solution be used? How will the design directly or indirectly affect the

environment?

Function What it must do? What is its purpose? How easily can it be used/maintained?

Manufacturing What resources are available? Are there limitations as to how this can be created?

How much time is needed to create the design?

Materials What materials are available? What properties do the materials need to have?

Security What security factors will to be incorporated into the design?

Features What features will be available in the product?

The table below demonstrates poor and good examples of design specifications. Remember that these should be

specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and testable.

Poor examples of a

design specification

Good examples of a design specification

My storage device must look

good/nice.

The interface must look

attractive.

The storage device must contrast with the furnishings of the room; so

bright colours such as red, yellow and orange would work really well.

The interface must appeal to my target audience; whose favourite colours

are hot pink and deep purple.

It must work well.

It must function correctly.

The clock must display the time accurately.

The clock must have a method to hang it on the wall.

The storage device must store my jewellery collection (list the specific

types of jewellery and quantity) 10 rings, 5 bracelets and 10 pendants.

All information on the web page must be accessible using 3 clicks or less.

My storage device must be

the right size.

My storage device must be able to hold 20 pencils that are 170mm long

and 8mm in diameter.

The images on the web page must be clear and visible when viewing

from 50cm from the screen.

My animation should be fun. My Flash animation should contain animated graphics that carry the

meaning of the song included, sing-along with bouncing dots and

appropriate typography (Sassoon Primary or similar.)

My video must include music. My video must include up-beat, hip-hop style music.

My video must not be too

long.

My video must be last at least 1 minute and no more than 2 minutes.

Develop a range of feasible design ideas that can be correctly interpreted by others

Students should be able to:

develop and use a variety of techniques to generate a range of different designs through 2D and 3D

modelling that are easily interpreted by others

use CAD to generate and develop complex, accurate designs

annotate designs to outline how they meet the requirements of the design specification and to

explain design thinking

evaluate designs against the specification to identify the most feasible solutions

develop the most feasible solutions to create a final design through modelling that fully meets the

requirements of the design specification.

For digital and product design, a natural starting place when designing is with a pencil and sheet of paper,

developing rough sketches of potential solutions. Students should be encouraged to focus on getting the basic

building blocks of ideas sketched out in short, concentrated bursts. These initial ideas should focus on generating a

range of different solutions to the problem.

Students should then identify which initial ideas should be developed further. This could be done through a range of

strategies, including:

further, more detailed sketches that start to develop ideas with direct reference to the specification

detailed annotation that allows students to explore and communicate their own thinking through annotation

making of simple card and CAD models and simulations used to test ideas and ensure they meet the

specification.

Try to draw sketches of the product e.g. a web page.