MYP Design Related Concepts in Design Notes

Related Concepts: The Zoom Lens on a Design Unit

1. A related concept is a narrower idea that belongs to design itself, and a unit normally uses one or two of them.
2. Design has twelve: adaptation, collaboration, ergonomics, evaluation, form, function, innovation, invention, markets and trends, perspective, resources and sustainability.
3. A key concept asks the big question; the related concept decides which part of it you will actually measure.
4. You can see a related concept in a good specification, because "ergonomics" turns into grip diameters and reach distances instead of staying a word.
5. Product design and digital design use the same twelve, though ergonomics in digital work becomes tap target size and reading distance rather than handle diameter.

Form, Function and Ergonomics: The Product Against a Human Body

1. Form is the shape, colour, texture, pattern and finish of a product, everything a user takes in before touching it.
2. Function is what the product does and how well it keeps doing it under real use.
3. Ergonomics is fitting a product to the body using it, worked out from measured data on size, reach, grip and force.
4. Form and function pull against each other in almost every unit, for example a slim phone case that looks better and protects less.
5. Ergonomics gives you numbers faster than any other related concept: a 32 mm handle diameter, a top shelf no higher than 1.5 m, a 44 pixel tap target.
6. Those numbers come from anthropometric data, published measurements of human bodies, and quoting a table of it counts as secondary research.

Adaptation, Innovation, Invention and Perspective: Where Ideas Come From

1. Adaptation is changing an existing design so it works in a new setting or for a different user.
2. Innovation is improving something that already exists so it does its job better.
3. Invention is making something that did not exist before, which is rarer in school projects than most students assume.
4. Perspective is the viewpoint a person or group brings, which changes what they count as a good design.
5. Most MYP projects sit in adaptation and innovation, and redesigning a bike light for cyclists on unlit lanes is honest, markable work.
6. Perspective is the concept that sends you to interview someone unlike you, since a left handed user or a wheelchair user meets a different product.

Markets and Trends, Resources and Sustainability: What a Design Costs

1. Markets and trends is about who would use or buy the product and what is currently popular with that group.
2. Resources covers the materials, tools, machine time, money, energy and skills a design will consume.
3. Sustainability is designing so a product can be made, used and disposed of without using up what later users will need.
4. Resources is the concept that keeps a project buildable, because a design that needs a CNC router your workshop does not own is a design you cannot make.
5. Sustainability becomes checkable specification points: one material so the whole thing recycles, screwed joints so it comes apart, offcuts kept under 10% of the sheet.
6. Markets and trends pushes you into competitor analysis, comparing three products already on sale to your user group on price, features and finish.

Collaboration and Evaluation: How Designers Work and Judge

1. Collaboration is working with other people, including your client and anyone with a skill you lack, so their knowledge shapes the design.
2. Evaluation is judging a solution against agreed criteria using evidence rather than opinion.
3. Collaboration shows up in a folder as recorded contact: dated interview notes, a client sign off on the specification, a technician's advice on which joint will hold.
4. Evaluation as a related concept is wider than criterion D, since you also evaluate ideas against the specification at criterion B.
5. A unit built around evaluation usually asks for testing more than once, so you can compare results between version one and version two.

Narrowing a Key Concept Into a Focus You Can Specify

1. A key concept on its own gives you a topic, while adding a related concept gives you a job with a measurable outcome.
2. "Communities" is too wide to specify against, whereas communities plus ergonomics points straight at body measurements for one named group.
3. Two related concepts is usually the limit, since each one has to earn its place by adding specification points.
4. Test a pairing by asking what it forces into your research, and drop any related concept that changes nothing about what you go and find out.

Picking a Related Concept That Earns Its Place

1. Start from the specification you want to be able to write, then work backwards to the concept that would produce those points.
2. Choose sustainability only if you will measure something real, such as waste mass in grams or the number of parts that separate for recycling.
3. Choose markets and trends only if you will compare actual products at actual prices.
4. Name the related concept in your design brief and again in your evaluation, so the thread running through the folder is visible.
5. If a reader could not guess which related concept you used from the folder alone, you did not really use one.