Key Idea: Examine performance → find strengths and weaknesses → identify opportunities. The third step is what makes it design work. Each stakeholder holds one kind of knowledge. Pair what they say with testing. SWOT: S and W are internal and now; O and T are external and future. Reverse engineering produces data — and you use the product BEFORE you open it. The opportunity in a market comparison is the row where everybody is weak.
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Tell an analysis from a description
- Match knowledge to the stakeholder who holds it
- Classify a SWOT entry by the internal-external axis
- Identify what a comparison row indicates
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Analyse a product and identify opportunities
- Identify stakeholders and what each contributes
- Analyse a product using SWOT on the five lenses
- Explain how reverse engineering would be carried out
Carried into the design project
- Criterion A — the existing product is your cheapest research
- Criterion B — baseline numbers become criteria to beat
- Criterion E — the before-and-after comparison IS the evaluation
This topic is a toolkit. Each tool answers a different question, and an answer that reaches for the wrong one loses marks even when it is well written.
| Tool | The question it answers | What it produces |
|---|---|---|
| Three-lens analysis | What is this product for, how well does it work, what does it have? | Baseline numbers and a list of features whose purpose is known |
| Stakeholder gathering | What does each group know that nobody else does? | Failures the manufacturer never hears about, and cost constraints you could not know |
| SWOT | What is true now, and what is coming? | Two pairings: what to push, and what to fix first |
| Reverse engineering | How was it made, and why was each decision taken? | A parts list, repairability data, and the design rationale |
| Market comparison | What has nobody in this market answered? | The unmet need — the strongest opportunity available |
| Constructive discontent | What has everybody stopped noticing? | An unmet need stated as an outcome |
Every weakness must become a testable requirement. A fault list cannot be prioritised, tested or re-measured, so it changes no decision. "Stable with 5 kg placed 50 mm from the working edge" goes straight into a specification.
Internal and now against external and future — and the two pairings that produce decisions.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
| Stage | What you record |
|---|---|
| 1. Use it first | Times, errors, hesitations, hand positions — the usability baseline |
| 2. Test it whole | Numbers with their conditions: tips at 4 kg placed 80 mm in |
| 3. Dismantle in order | Minutes to open, tools needed, parts destroyed — the repairability data |
| 4. Analyse the parts | A parts list with material, process and purpose — and the ones you cannot explain |
| 5. Infer the decisions | The design rationale: cost, process, a standard, a patent |
Important: Describing instead of analysing. Tie every observation to a consequence. Dismantling before using. The usability baseline cannot be recovered afterwards. Writing a weakness twice — once as a weakness and once as an opportunity. Opportunities are external.
The opportunity is a ROW where everybody is weak, not the column with the best score.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
Analyse a supermarket trolley and identify two opportunities for improvement.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Explain how reverse engineering and stakeholder information together would establish what needs improving in a supermarket trolley.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
What separates analysis from description?
Which stakeholder group is almost never asked?
What is the SWOT axis?
Why use a product before dismantling it?
Where is the opportunity in a market comparison?
What makes discontent constructive?
Exam tips
- Use the three lenses as headings, and tie every observation to a consequence.
- Give each stakeholder unique knowledge and a question to ask.
- SWOT: internal now against external future, then the two pairings.
- Reverse engineering: use it before you open it, and record numbers.
- The opportunity is a row, not a column.
- Every weakness ends as a testable requirement.