Project Proposal and Management
Students should:
- present the proposal section as a plan of the future direction of the project and then manage the process
- ensure that the project reflects the original need as outlined at the beginning of the folio and that the process reflects design decision making and design development
- consider the layout of the folio in terms of the marking guideline order
- focus on developing the product, system or environment intended and not consider alternative projects
- clearly identify the problem in the first paragraph of the folio
- write time, action and finance plans prior to the process and not after the completion of the project.
In better projects, students were able to:
- develop the folio using the syllabus headings, making evidence clearly accessible
- ensure the project’s intentions are immediately evident so the marker has a clear expectation of what evidence of a process of design could be presented.
Areas for students to improve include:
- using the equivalent of Times New Roman 12 point font size or larger
- maintaining the 80-page limit and preferably 80 single-sided A4
- keeping media presentations to a maximum of six minutes, providing clear instructions for markers
- presenting media evidence of successes and failures when they are difficult to verbalise
- avoiding the repetition of work in photos or media presentations
- understanding that reproducing many small pictures or text from the folio as A4 copies for display purposes or stills in a media presentation could breach the folio page count and therefore may render the folio oversize
- ensuring that sketches and images are not so small so that the marker cannot be easily read.
Project Development and Realisation
Students should:
- develop research that links to the project, system or environment being produced
- maximise the developmental sketches and annotations of the design
- include evidence of the evolution of the product, system or environment and this should be seen in the creativity, sketching, model making, testing, experiments and refinements related to the solution presented.
In better projects, students were able to:
- clearly identify tests, experiments and practical skills and link them to decision making to enhance the design
- demonstrate a depth of knowledge to manipulate items within their skillset, as opposed to items that have been downloaded or outsourced, especially in applications and architectural presentations
- clearly identify their own work as opposed to what the program may have generated from inbuilt functions, in particular in digital projects.
Areas for students to improve include:
- removing time outs or ensure that passwords for accessing student work are clearly identified
- ensuring that the language and images used and any violent content in media presentations is appropriate for the general viewing audience
- having laptops plugged into chargers.
Evaluation
- be concise and focus on evaluative statements, including a cause, an effect and an impact
- be succinct, offering information that relates directly to solving the problem they proposed as their need
- show the relationship between the proposal and the presented package
- outline the process of design undertaken, highlighting functional, aesthetic, social and environmental issues
- ensure that the folio tells the story of the project’s progression and the creation of a solution to the need identified in the proposal.
In better projects, students were able to:
- design, research, test and clearly relate the results to determining a solution to the need or problem
- draw conclusions that aided in the development of the solution
Areas for students to improve include understanding that:
- full pages of font, minimum line spacing and tiny pictures is a poor way of communicating
- the addition of diaries, surveys and printable materials in the media presentation could make the project oversize.
