Key Idea: Five stages: empathize → define the project → ideation and modelling → designing a solution → presenting. Learn each by what it produces. Research is ongoing. Primary/secondary is who collected it; qualitative/quantitative is what kind it is. A problem statement names WHO, the NEED as an outcome, and BECAUSE with evidence — never a solution. Every specification criterion is behaviour, with a number and a test, banded essential or desirable. Development is model, test, refine, and it ends when the essentials are measured and met.
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Match an activity or an output to its stage
- Classify research as primary/secondary, qualitative/quantitative
- Spot the fault in a problem statement or a criterion
- Identify a genuinely distinct set of ideas
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Outline the stages for a named product's redesign
- Construct a problem statement and specification criteria
- Apply ideation techniques and compare the ideas
- Demonstrate three loops of model, test, refine
Carried into the design project
- This topic IS the structure of criteria A to E
- Your folder is judged on the outputs named here
- Every stage must show what it produced, not what you read
The topic is long because it is a whole project. Held as fifteen separate facts it is unlearnable; held as one sequence, each statement is the stage that produced the thing the next one needs.
| Stage | Statements | What must exist at the end of it |
|---|---|---|
| Empathize | Research, primary, secondary, personae, journeys, product analysis | Findings, a primary persona, a storyboard with pain points, an analysis of what exists |
| Define | Problem statement, design specification | WHO/NEED/BECAUSE, and criteria with numbers, tests and bands |
| Ideate | Ideation techniques, iterative analysis of ideas | Distinct ideas, modelled equally, compared in a matrix, with an improved idea out of it |
| Design a solution | Model-test-refine, models and mock-ups, detailed drawings | Loops with data between them, and a buildable drawing set |
| Present | Presenting a solution | The need, the features in use, and a measurement against every criterion |
Every stage produces something a marker can look at. If you cannot name the artefact, the stage has not been done — and that is exactly what a Paper 2 question is asking you to show.
Five stages with their outputs, and the return arrows. Testing sends you back to ideation; a new requirement sends you back to the specification.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
| Artefact | It must contain | The half students leave out |
|---|---|---|
| Problem statement | WHO (recruitable) + NEED (an outcome) + BECAUSE (evidence) | The BECAUSE clause, and the refusal to name a solution |
| Specification criterion | Behaviour + a number + a test + a band | The test, and a reason for the band |
| User journey | Frames before and after the product, an experience line, pain points | The design opportunity for each pain point |
| Development loop | What was built, what was measured, what changed | What changed — without it the loop was a demonstration |
Important: A problem statement that names a solution. Every idea afterwards becomes a variant of it. A specification with no numbers. It cannot filter ideas, close development or structure the evaluation. A page of prototype photographs with no data between them. That is activity, not development.
Finding → criterion → test → band. If you cannot say how you would test it, it is a wish.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
A school canteen queue is slow at break. Research found that 18 of 25 students could not reach the cutlery without stepping out of the queue, and that the tray rail is 120 mm too wide for one hand. Construct a problem statement and three specification criteria.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Demonstrate iterative development of a cutlery dispenser for a school canteen across three loops of the model, test, refine cycle.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Name the five stages and one output of each.
What are the two research axes?
What makes a problem statement usable?
Why must a criterion carry a test?
What makes two ideas distinct rather than variants?
When does development stop?
Exam tips
- Name the output of every stage. A list of five stage names scores almost nothing.
- Anchor every answer in the named product. Generic answers cap low.
- Problem statement: WHO + NEED as an outcome + BECAUSE with evidence.
- Every criterion: behaviour + number + test + band with a reason.
- Every development loop: built, measured, changed.
- Report the criterion you did not meet, with a next step.