Key Idea: Three duties: to the client, to the community, to the environment. Every decision reaches all three. Judge an impact over the whole life and the whole population, never at the factory gate. A standard turns a duty into a hazard, a test and a limit — and it is a floor, not a target. Design the hazard out before you guard it, and guard it before you warn. Obsolescence comes in five kinds, and only planned is a deliberate choice.
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Identify which group an impact falls on
- Pick the strongest control in the safety hierarchy
- Classify a case of obsolescence
- Say what conformity to a standard does and does not mean
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Outline the impacts of a named product's decisions
- Evaluate how standards help make a product safe
- Analyse obsolescence against the triple bottom line
- Explain how a product could be designed to last
Carried into the design project
- Criterion E — the impact of what you designed
- Safety decisions must be recorded, not assumed
- Repairability is a design decision with evidence behind it
Responsibility is not a feeling. It is four questions asked before a decision is fixed — asked afterwards, they are an apology.
| Question | Why it matters | On a welded-shut earcup |
|---|---|---|
| Who else lives with this? | The repairer, the weaker user, the person sorting it at end of life — none is in the room | An owner scrapping £180 for a £2 wire; a repair shop that cannot open it |
| For how long? | A week, a warranty, or the thirty years the material lasts | The plastics outlive the product by decades |
| What would change it? | Most improvements are small and cheap at design stage | Four screws under the ear pad |
| Can I say why? | A defensible decision is responsible; an unnoticed one causes the damage | It was taken in a meeting about assembly cost, and never revisited |
Name a decision, give the mechanism, and say who lives with it. "Designers should be responsible" earns nothing. "Welding the earcup shut for assembly cost turned every cable fault into scrap" earns most of a question.
One decision, three consequences — a negative case, a positive one, and one that is better per unit and worse across a year.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
| What it is | What an examiner wants | |
|---|---|---|
| A standard | A hazard, a test and a limit, written down | That it makes a duty testable — and that it is a floor |
| Safety hierarchy | Design out → guard → warn | Why a warning is the weakest, and a specific redesign instead |
| Planned obsolescence | A deliberate limit on useful life | That it is the only kind that is a choice |
| Functional obsolescence | It broke, and cannot economically be repaired | The design decision that made repair impossible |
| Triple bottom line | People, profit, planet | All three worked separately, not merged |
Important: "Designers should be responsible." No decision, no mechanism, no marks. Calling everything planned obsolescence. A welded drum is functional obsolescence made worse by a cost decision. Treating conformity as the end of the duty. A standard is a minimum against a population somebody else imagined.
Five kinds, their effect on people, profit and planet, and the design answer to each.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
A cordless vacuum cleaner's battery is glued into the body and rated for 400 charges. Analyse this against the triple bottom line and explain how it could be designed out.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Evaluate how safety standards help a designer make a folding pushchair safe.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
What three duties does a designer hold?
Why judge an impact over the whole life?
What does a standard convert a duty into?
Why is a warning label the weakest control?
Planned or functional obsolescence?
Give the commercial case for longevity.
Exam tips
- Name a decision and its mechanism, never a general attitude.
- Judge impacts over the whole life and the whole population.
- Safety: design out → guard → warn, and a standard is a floor.
- Classify obsolescence by what ended the product.
- Work the three Ps separately: people, profit, planet.
- Give the commercial case alongside the environmental one.