Design and the Design Process
What you must understand
The design process is not a single recipe but a set of overlapping stages: identifying a need or problem, brief and specification, research, idea generation, development, prototyping, testing and evaluation. Learn the difference between a design brief (a broad statement of intent and constraints agreed with the client) and a design specification (precise, measurable criteria used later to judge success). Know the role of constraints and criteria: constraints are limits you cannot change (budget, safety standards, available equipment), criteria are desirable qualities you can trade off.
Be able to describe idea-generation techniques such as brainstorming, morphological analysis, mind mapping and SCAMPER-style modification, and explain why divergent thinking is followed by convergent evaluation. Understand iterative design: feedback loops, prototyping at low fidelity first, and testing against the specification. Learn evaluation types: formative (during development) and summative (at the end), plus the value of user feedback and ergonomic data.
Traps
Questions often ask you to distinguish stages rather than list them, so a vague answer that says 'research' without saying what is researched scores poorly. Another trap is treating the process as strictly linear; markers reward evidence of iteration and revisiting earlier stages. Do not confuse a brief with a specification, and do not present a constraint as a criterion.
Worked example
A student designs a school bag. Brief: 'a bag for Year 12 students carrying laptops and books'. Specification: capacity at least 20 L, laptop sleeve fitting a 15-inch device, total mass under 1.2 kg, water-resistant fabric, cost under $40. Rule of thumb: if a criterion cannot be measured or tested, rewrite it until it can be.