Design Evaluation and Reflection
Evaluation is the disciplined judgement of a design against its purpose. Candidates must understand formative evaluation (ongoing, during the process, informing change) versus summative evaluation (at the end, judging overall success). Know how to write criteria that are specific, measurable, and tied to the brief, and how to gather evidence: user testing, observation, measurement, survey, and expert review. Distinguish quantitative data (numbers, measurable performance) from qualitative data (opinions, observed behaviour), and know that strong evaluation uses both.
A common trap is vague evaluation - 'it works well' or 'users liked it' without criteria or evidence. Another is confusing evaluation with description: describing what you made is not judging whether it met the need. Also watch for questions that assume testing proves success when the sample was small or unrepresentative; acknowledge limitations.
Reflection is the personal, critical layer: what you would change, why, and what you learned about your process. Examiners reward specific, actionable reflection ('I would test with five users earlier, because late feedback forced rework') over general statements.
Worked example / rule of thumb: A prototype chair must be 'comfortable for 30 minutes'. Turn this into criteria: seat height within an ergonomic range, no pressure points reported by 5 of 5 testers over 30 minutes, and no structural deflection beyond 5 mm. Test, record results, compare to criteria, then state a judgement plus one improvement. Rule of thumb: criterion → evidence → judgement → improvement - every evaluation paragraph should contain all four.