Design Ideas and Evaluation Criteria
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Use the Design Ideas and Evaluation Template to structure the alternative designs, criteria table and preferred-design justification.
Design Ideas
Generate and document a range of design ideas for your proposed software solution.
These ideas should be broad and should consider both:
- functionality
- appearance
You can also think about user experience and design principles while generating your ideas.
Examples of design ideas listed in the document include:
- mood boards
- brainstorms
- mind maps
- sketches
- annotations
Mood boards
Mood boards collate imagery, colours, typography and code samples to explore the overall direction of the solution. Annotate them to show:
- what seems relevant to your solution
- what should be included
- what should be avoided
- why those choices matter
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is an unstructured collection of related ideas around a central theme. It can be documented as a list or as a diagram.
If you use a diagram:
- put the central theme in a rectangle, cloud shape or ellipse
- connect related ideas to it with straight lines
The study-design reference gives example brainstorm ideas such as:
- design
- user experience
- design tools
- interoperability
- usability
- colour
- affordance
- pseudocode
- design principles
- security
Mind maps
Mind maps are a more structured version of brainstorming. They still begin with a central theme, but the ideas branch out in a clearer hierarchy.
Sketches
Sketches are rough interface drawings or quick diagrams showing how parts of the software solution could interact. They can be hand drawn or produced digitally.
Annotations
Annotations can be added across all design ideas to organise thoughts, justify design choices and show relationships between ideas.
At this stage, get feedback from your client or potential users.
Evaluation Criteria
Develop criteria that you will use to evaluate:
- your design ideas
- your finished software solution in Unit 4 Outcome 1
Your design criteria should help you judge how well each idea links back to the requirements in your SRS and how suitable it is for the proposed software solution.
Your software-solution criteria should help you judge whether the SRS requirements were met and how efficient and effective the final solution is.
Design Process
The document shows design ideas being refined through feedback and evaluation criteria before moving into a detailed design.