CCEA GCSE Technology and Design

## The stages of the design process Designing a product is organised into stages, although a real project may use only some of them and does not move through them in a straight line. The usual stages, in order, are spotting a design opportunity, researching it, writing a brief and then a specification, generating and developing ideas, making the product, and finally testing and evaluating it. A **design opportunity** is a need or problem that a product could solve, such as people struggling to carry shopping up stairs or a school needing somewhere to store bicycles. Spotting it often comes from watching how people behave or from a complaint about something that already exists. **Research** gathers what the designer needs to know before drawing anything. Primary research is collected first-hand, for example by interviewing users, observing how they use a similar product or measuring them. Secondary research uses existing sources such as books, websites, catalogues and the analysis of products already on sale. Research covers who the product is for (the target market), what it must do, what materials and processes are suitable and what rival products offer. The **brief** is a short statement of what is to be designed, for whom and for what purpose. It stays general enough to leave room for ideas, so "a storage product for a student's desk" is a brief where "a pine box with two drawers" is not. The **specification** is a list of the requirements the final product must meet…