MYP Design Evidencing the Design Cycle Notes

Each Criterion Breaks Into Strands, And Every Strand Is Marked

1. Each of the four criteria is marked out of 8, and each one splits into numbered parts called strands.
2. Criterion A alone asks you to justify the need, plan your research, analyse existing products and write the design brief, and each of those wants its own evidence.
3. Your teacher marks strand by strand, so brilliant work in one strand cannot cover the empty strand beside it.
4. Read the wording of a strand before you build the page that evidences it, because the verb tells you what to show.
5. A strand asking you to analyse stays unsatisfied by a page that only describes.
6. The four criteria articles in this unit explain what each strand demands; this article is about proving you did it.

Match Every Strand to a Page Before You Submit

1. Make a two column list with every strand on the left and the folder page number on the right.
2. Fill it in as you work, and treat any strand still blank in week six as your next task.
3. Where one page covers two strands write both numbers, then check that the page really does two jobs rather than one job twice.
4. Put the strand label on the page itself, since your personal checklist is not submitted.
5. Three pages piled on one strand while another has none is the clearest sign your effort went to the wrong place.

What Counts as Evidence

1. Evidence is anything on a page that shows the thinking, and a paragraph describing what you did is the weakest form of it.
2. Research notes count when each carries its source and the one thing you took from it.
3. Annotated sketches count because the annotation holds the reasoning, while a bare sketch shows only that you can draw.
4. Comparison matrices count because the scores and weightings expose how a choice got made.
5. Photographs of making count when they catch a step or a problem, like the 3D print that lifted off the bed at one corner.
6. Test tables and client feedback count double, because both bring in information from outside your own head.

Show the Process, Not Only the Finished Product

1. The design cycle is a process, so the folder has to show movement between stages rather than one polished endpoint.
2. Keep the ideas you rejected, because a rejection with a reason is worth more than another drawing of the winner.
3. Photograph failures, like the first cut that burned straight through 3 mm plywood, then show the power setting you dropped it to.
4. Put two versions of the same part side by side so the improvement is visible.
5. Include the messy working, for example the sheet where you sized the shelf 20 mm too narrow and corrected it.
6. A spotless folder where every idea worked first time reads as a folder written after the project ended.

Dates Prove the Cycle Actually Turned

1. Put a date on every page, in the same corner each time.
2. Dates show the order of the work, and that order is what turns a pile of pages into a cycle.
3. A test dated before the prototype existed cannot be a real test, and the mismatch is easy to spot.
4. Phone photos carry their own date, so shooting your work on the day it happens hands you that evidence for nothing.
5. Going back to an earlier stage is good design, so date the second visit and write the one line that sent you back.

Follow One Decision Across Three Pages

1. The strongest evidence is a thread, where research on one page causes a decision on the next and a test on a third.
2. A survey finding that 21 of 30 users carry the bottle in a side pocket leads to a strap, which is then tested by walking 200 m with it.
3. Write the link out in words, starting "because the survey found", so the reader is never asked to guess your reasoning.
4. Three or four traced threads across a folder carry more weight than thirty unconnected pages.
5. A decision with no research behind it and no test in front of it is only a preference.