A1: Problem Statement

Design opportunities arise from gaps in the market, problems people face, or areas needing improvement. The first step is identifying a design opportunity or problem to solve.

In personal product design, you're creating solutions for people – your clients or target audience. You can even choose a target market or user profile that reflects someone similar to yourself.

To back up your claims, gather evidence that validates the existence and importance of this opportunity or problem.

A2: Research planning

Research planning 

"What is the "research plan" in MYP design project?" 

Source [Secondary]: bit.ly/unisdesign 

Priority: High

Effective problem-solving in design starts with a thorough understanding of the issue. This research plan will guide your data collection and ensure your solution truly addresses the core problem.

Begin with questions you have about the problem or topic area. In this topic, manufacturing, electronics, design styles and materials are essential areas to examine. 

List your questions, organise them by importance and find links to potential sources of information. Provide a mix of primary and secondary sources. 

A3: Analysing existing products

"Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery, it is the  sincerest form of learning" - George Bernard Shaw

In the same way that the iPhone 15 improves on the iPhone 14, we look at other designs to inspire our own. Using this method, we analyse products and highlight features that we want to incorporate into our solution. 

Analysing is difficult but there are a number of tools such as morphological analysis, SWOT and MISO to help. 

You should alase a wide range of different products. Not just ones that are in a similar area to your chosen topic. Designs for products are often inspired by nature.

A4: Design Brief 

We've gathered a wealth of information and analyzed numerous products. To ensure clarity, let's synthesize our findings and define a clear design direction.

Here, we'll distill the key insights from our analysis to guide our design choices. We don't need to repeat everything, but focus on the crucial elements that will inform a strong design.

B1: Specification

Generating ideas should be free and creative but it is useful to create boundaries and guidelines for those ideas to develop. 

In this situation, we will create a list of success criteria for our product. These are guidelines for our ideas and should be ranges of information. 

Eg; 

"maximum size of product between Xmm - Ymm"

B2: Design Ideas

There are numerous ways to develop ideas for products. Some are free and open while other approaches are more structured. Here we will use the more structured Morphological Matrix method. 

In this method, you define different features of the product and design several variants of each feature. After you have created a matrix of design ideas you will develop different combinations. 

Annotations for drawings or models should be brief (not more than 10 words each).

B3: Chosen Design

Once you have arrived at your final design you must check that it satisfies all the criteria you set out earlier. If you have created a detailed Design specification, you can use this as a checklist to determine if this final idea will solve the design problem and meet the needs of the client. 

Present your design and explain why it is the best idea. Justify or prove that this is the case by referencing your research, design brief and design specification,

B4: Final design 

This is your working drawing that will be used to create your product. If you need any help with creating your product, you will be asked about the details in this drawing. It can be done digitally using OnShape or by hand. 

Regardless of the format your final design drawing(s) should show each part of the product in detail. Other details to include are the materials, dimensions, and function of parts. 

C1: Production planning

"Fail to prepare, Prepare to Fail"

-Roy Keane (Ireland & Manchester Utd captain)

Plan your classes until the Criteria C deadline and allow some extra time for unforeseen changes. 

When planning you should indicate what task you are working on for each class, how long you think the task will take, and what equipment and resources you need to complete the task.

Your plan should be detailed enough for someone else to create your product using only your plan and your design drawings.  

C2: Skills development

Your assessment grade for the product is mostly based on your ability to show your process and develop skills. Here you are focussing on demonstrating how you have learned new skills and developed existing skills to create your product. 

Having a more diverse range of skills is better than relying on one set of skills like 3D printing or woodworking as it may limit the possibilities for your product.   

Show your skills with images or videos of you demonstrating your skills. As with drawings and models in section B, Annotations of images should be brief (not more than 10 words each)

C3: Manufacturing process

Showing process is important in many areas of education and in life. In Mathematics you are required to show how you solved an equation rather than just producing the answer. This is useful because it allows you to be rewarded for your effort even if the final product is not complete or not as good as expected. 

You should document your process using photos and video and use annotation sparingly to further explain your work. 

This section can be combined with C2 to avoid repetition of information. 

C4: Changes

It is unusual for everything to go to plan as you create a design. Your ideas will evolve as you create parts and problems will arise that are outside of your control. For example, a delay with the 3D printer may force you to make parts by hand. These parts may turn out better than the original.  

This is part of the normal process and should be documented as such. Using images or text show and explain what changes were made. Justify the reasons for these changes. Common reasons are time, skill level, or issues with resources. 

D1: Testing

Product testing is a crucial step in the design process. It acts as a bridge between the designer's vision and the real-world experience of users. It can highlight successes and shortcomings which allow you to improve your process. You may not be able to improve this product but you can take note for next time. 

It is important to test your product in multiple ways and gather different data. You can do this by performing user tests, expert appraisals, and practical experiments like destructive and non-destructive testing. 

Similar to manufacturing make sure to document your testing and results. 

D2: Evaluation against specification

Before you created your prototype or product you generated a set of guidelines and success criteria for the product. Using the information gathered from your tests you can make a judgement about how well you met the success criteria.  

A short explanation may be needed to show how you believe the success criteria was achieved but the key is to keep your writing concise and avoid repeating information from the tests.  

D3: Improvements

GFiven more time, different circumstances and access to additional resources how would you change our final product?

Based on the results of your testing you know the shortcomings of your product and areas for improvement. In this section, you state the improvements you would make and explain how you would make them. 

This information can be written but is often shown through annotated images, sketches, or CAD models. 

Similar to section B and C, Annotations of images should be brief (not more than 10 words each)

D4: Impact

At the beginning of this unit, we set out to design a product that has a simple function and solves a small possibly personal problem. We have already established how successful we were in solving that small problem. Now it is time to look further. 

If this problem can be solved for one person or a small group can the same principle be used for a wider group? 

What impact would this product have on a wider group of people with similar wants and needs? Would this product be successful as a commercial product?