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Design and Technology

Home > Design and Technology > Designing and Producing > Project Advice and Examples > Project advice and examples

Project Example

Web page for Drug Education

These pages are meant as a guide for prospective candidates of Design and Technology, they are not prescriptive nor cover the full range of tasks that a candidate would complete to fully satisfy the examination criteria for a Major Design Project.

Note that each of these examples has a title, the title for a project should not be fully determined until the needs have been identified. Someone who sets out to design a bridge, may find that a tunnel is a better solution!

Project Proposal and Project Management / 15
Project Development and Realisation / 35
Evaluation /10

Project Proposal and Project Management / 15

Identification and exploration of the need

• Conduct paper survey of target audience, Year six to seven, as identified in media as being target group.
• Phone survey schools, drug education unit, PDHPE staff, government agencies.
• Talk to parent groups.

Areas of investigation

• What is the data required?
• What makes a good web site?
• Can I fit it all on a floppy disk?
• Existing solutions
• Internet technology
• Software for producing web pages (tools and techniques)
• Where could it be hosted?
• Sponsorship?
• What sort of interface is suitable for the target audience?
• What language level would be appropriate?

Criteria to evaluate success

• Use a pre-test, post test of a sample of year 6 and year 7 students, by negotiation with teachers and parents.
• Greater knowledge of truth about drugs.
• Reduced anonymous willingness to try illegal drugs.
• Maintains interest of a 12 year old for 15 minutes.
• Information is readily absorbed and recalled.
• Analyse the functional and aesthetic criteria.

Action, Time and Finance Plans and their application

• Create a separate web site about the project, print out each page as it develops and keep back ups. (All work must also be submitted in hard copy.)
• Have a calendar on screen with clickable links to each action, describing the action and how it is applied.
• Use graphs to show the projected budget and how each part of it should be spent, then a comparison graph showing how it was spent.

Project Development and Realisation / 35

Evidence of creativity - ideas generation, degree of difference and exploration of existing ideas

• Develop a range of strategies and approaches, save, print and date these to show the different styles developed.
• Have these evaluated as the project develops.
• Use paper and pens / coloured pencil to develop a range of possibilities.
• Be innovative in the range of interfaces, information, resources used.

Consideration of design factors relevant to the major design project

• Develop an analysis of the range of factors that are involved in the design of a web page.
• Brainstorm from existing web sites, materials, properties, usability, mapping and ease of use.

Appropriate research and experimentation of materials, tools, techniques and testing of design solutions

• Use a broad range of resources as shown in areas of investigation.
• Identify through Internet, Yellow Pages web page, youth magazine and the local members of parliament.
• Create a database, showing fields for selection and justification, date each entry and print out.
• Take photos and have them processed on disk so that they can be part of a web page.
• Print off experimentation with layout and annotate them showing faults and strengths, using SWOT analysis.
• Try various software and review it, include reviews in folio.
• Have several full web sites printed in colour showing the development from the first prototype, trialled with students, to the finished one.
• Be sure to date every version and keep a copy, so that markers can see the development and impact of testing on that development.

Application of conclusions

Identification and justification of ideas and resources used

Use of communication and presentation techniques

• Obtain professional graphic design advice to evaluate the presentation of the site.
• Use a range of communication methodologies.
• Try to include multimedia in the site development.
• Present the site as a series of printouts with string or ribbon between them on a pin board showing all of the links.

Evidence and application of practical skills to produce a quality project

• Increase the skills that I have to make the pages as good as any.
• Seek professional judgement about the quality.
• Show a broader range of skills by creating some of my own graphics, use a range of media.
• Use additional skills to create an exceptional display.

 

Evaluation / 10

Record and application of evaluation procedures throughout the design project

• On the web site developed as the folio, include a link on each page showing the evaluations conducted at each stage. Print these out also and display on separate pin board, showing the links with string or ribbon.
• Highlight where the evaluation has changed the web site moving it closer to the satisfaction of the needs by directly comparing printouts of before and after.

Analysis and evaluation of functional and aesthetic aspects of design

• Be clear in my identification of needs and criteria to evaluate success, which aspects are functional and which are aesthetic, some discussion about interface design, where aesthetic and functionality overlap.
• Create subsets of evaluation criteria based on these aspects and have a range of potential users involved in developing them.
• Use surveys and questionnaires to assess the value of the functional and aesthetic aspects of the completed project.
• Apply the criteria to evaluate success rigidly and honestly scoring the performance on these aspects.

Final evaluation with respect to the project's impact on the individual, society and the environment

• Revisit the design criteria and draw conclusions based on the evaluations.
• Is there an improvement in society as a result of better educated young people?
• Are there environmental improvements from reduced drug use?
• Is there a reduction in crime from reduced drug use?

Relationship of the final product, system or environment to the project proposal

• A summation of the points extracted from the user evaluations, my own evaluations based on application of the evaluation criteria and evaluative methodologies, and professional evaluations.