MYP Design Writing a Design Specification Notes

A Specification Turns Research Into Rules

1. A design specification is the numbered list of requirements your product must meet, written after your research and before your first sketch.
2. It belongs to Developing ideas, criterion B, and every idea you draw afterwards gets judged against it.
3. The first strand of criterion B asks you to develop a specification that outlines the success criteria for the solution, so this list is assessed work and not a warm up.
4. You are converting what you found out into instructions you can obey, so a survey finding that users carry the lamp between rooms becomes a hard limit of 600 g.

It Describes The Problem, Not Your Idea

1. A specification sets out what any solution must do, so several very different designs should be able to satisfy it.
2. "Made from 3 mm birch plywood with a 60 degree rest angle" is a description of a product you have already chosen.
3. "Must hold a phone between 145 mm and 165 mm tall at a viewing angle between 55 and 65 degrees" still leaves room for plywood, folded steel or a 3D print.
4. Writing the specification before the ideas stops you inventing rules that flatter the first thing you sketched.

Every Point Traces Back To A Finding

1. Each point needs a source in your criterion A research, and the cheapest way to show it is a short why clause on the same line.
2. Client and user research gives you needs, such as an interview with your client, a questionnaire of 30 students, or watching someone struggle with the product they own now.
3. Existing product analysis gives you benchmarks, so if three shop bought desk tidies all sit under 200 mm wide, your width limit has a reason behind it.
4. Technical and material research gives you limits, since PLA starts to soften around 60 degrees C and a stand for a sunny windowsill needs a different material.
5. Safety rules give you hard requirements, such as no part under 32 mm across in a toy aimed at children under three.
6. A point with no research behind it is a guess, and anyone reading your design folder can tell the difference.

Measurable Means Someone Else Could Check It

1. A point is measurable if a stranger holding your folder, a ruler and a stopwatch could decide pass or fail without asking you what you meant.
2. Use numbers with units wherever you can, such as 250 mm maximum height, 1.5 kg maximum mass, or under 8 seconds to fold flat.
3. Where a number is impossible, use a countable test, such as 8 out of 10 students assembling it without reading instructions.
4. Ranges beat single values when the real world varies, so "between 700 mm and 760 mm" is honest about desk heights.
5. Use must for a requirement that decides pass or fail and should for a preference, and keep the two words apart in your list.
6. Number your points 1, 2, 3 so you can later write "idea B meets points 1, 4 and 7" without retyping any of them.

Six Headings That Cover A Whole Product

1. Grouping your points under headings stops you writing nine requirements about appearance and none about cost.
2. Function and performance covers what it does, how much it holds, how fast it works and how long the battery lasts.
3. User and ergonomics covers who uses it, reach, grip size, reading distance and access needs such as a text contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1.
4. Materials and manufacture covers what it is made from, which workshop machines you can actually book, and the tolerances those machines can hold.
5. Aesthetics covers colour, form and finish, written as something checkable such as "must use the client's two brand colours".
6. Safety and sustainability covers sharp edges, stability, recyclable materials, repairability and how long the product should last.
7. Cost and time covers a materials budget in real money and the number of lessons you have to make the thing.

Weak Versus Strong: The Rewrite Test

1. Run every draft point through one question, which is what would I measure and what number counts as a pass.
2. If the answer is that you would look at it and decide, the point is an opinion and needs a number, a range or a user test.
3. Words like strong, cheap, attractive and eco friendly are warning signs rather than requirements.

A Specification You Sign Early Saves You Later

1. Your specification is the yardstick for the rest of the design cycle, so a vague one weakens everything downstream.
2. In criterion B you score ideas against it, in Creating the solution you make decisions against it, and in Evaluating you test the finished product against it.
3. Agree it with your client before you sketch, and record their sign off with a date.
4. If later research forces a change, do not quietly rewrite the old point, but add the new version, date it and write one line saying what you learned.
5. That visible change is evidence of thinking and reads as strength, not as a mistake.