IB Design Technology Topic C1.1: Responsibility of the Designer Questionbank

As part of a university sustainability initiative, a team of product designers were invited to review three consumer items, analysing how each design reflects the ethical responsibilities of the designer including environmental impact, user safety, and potential obsolescence.

Datakeep once sold the floppy disks shown in Figure 1 for storing computer files. Each disk holds about 1.4 megabytes. The company stopped selling them once cheap USB flash drives, which store thousands of times more data in a smaller device, became widely available, even though a floppy disk still works.

Figure 1: A pack of 3.5 inch floppy disks.

Read the following stimulus and answer parts (a) and (b).

In the 1970s the flared "bell-bottom" trousers shown in the figure were highly fashionable. By the end of the decade they had fallen out of favour and straight-leg trousers took over, even though the flared trousers were still perfectly wearable.

An older house has a layout in which the only way to reach the second bedroom is to walk through the first. The house is structurally sound and everything in it works, but buyers find the layout inconvenient and value the house less than a similar house with a modern layout.

Read the following stimulus and answer parts (a) and (b).

A clothing brand follows a fast fashion model. It copies the latest catwalk trends, sells cheaply made garments in large volumes, shown on the rack in the figure, and relies on customers discarding them after only a few wears once the trend passes.