He iti te mokoroa, nāna i kati te kahikatea
The mokoroa (grub) may be small, but it cuts through the Kahikatea
Design is the stage where you work out what you are going to make before you start building it. It helps you turn your brief into a clearer design direction, so you are not just guessing as you go. Design also means thinking carefully about people, culture, and responsible choices, including how manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga can be reflected in your design or design process.
A good design process helps you:
explore different ideas
decide what works best
improve your ideas through feedback
create a final design that is ready to make
Designing first helps you make better choices before you spend time creating the final outcome. It gives you a chance to test ideas, listen to feedback, and improve the direction of your project so the final outcome is clearer, stronger, and more fit for purpose.
2d ⟹ 3d
Sketches ⟹ Computer generated
A little colour ⟹ Fully rendered
Each stage builds on the previous one, helping you move from an idea to a finished digital outcome.
You will work through 4 stages:
Design Phase – work out what you are going to make and why
Development Sprint 1 (MVP) – make it work
Development Sprint 2 (MMP) – make it look and feel right
Development Sprint 3 (MAP) – polish and refine
Each sprint will be 4 weeks long and should have specific goals that need be implemented. If features are not on track then they may need to be scrapped or revised.
Which stage do you think is easiest to get wrong? Why?
The design phase is broken into smaller parts to help you manage your time and work through the process step by step.
During this phase, you will:
define the requirements
generate a range of design ideas
refine ideas using feedback
select and justify a final design
You will use your research, brief, design factors, and cultural principles such as manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga to help guide your design decisions.
By the end of this phase, your design should clearly show what the outcome will look like and how it will function, so it is ready for development.
You will use the design planning table to track your progress through each part of the design phase. This helps you stay organised, keep up with the timeline, and see what still needs to be completed.
This phase is for 92007 Design a digital technologies outcome. Your work here should show planning, ideas, feedback, refinements, and design decisions for a design.
You should not use the software that will be used to create the final outcome. Once you start creating the outcome in that software, you are developing it, which belongs to 92005 Develop a digital technologies outcome.
For this phase, your evidence should show the design process, not the actual outcome being built.
Your design needs to clearly show the purpose of your outcome and the requirements of your end users.
You will already have written these in your project brief. In this section, you will bring those requirements into your design work and explain what each one means for your design.
Your purpose explains the overall goal of the outcome.
Your requirements explain the specific things your outcome must do or include to be successful for your users.
For each requirement, you also need to explain:
What this means for my design
This is where you unpack the requirement and say what you will need to think about, include, or show in your design.
Your requirements should be:
clear
specific
linked to your users
directly connected to the outcome you are designing
Use your project brief to complete this section.
Copy your requirements and design factors from your brief into the first two columns.
Complete the third column: What this means for my design.
This is where you explain what each requirement means in practice. Ask yourself:
- What do I need to include in my design because of this requirement?
- What do I need to think about when generating ideas?
- How might this affect the look, function, or details of my outcome?
Check that your requirements still match the direction of your project. If anything has changed, refine them before moving on.
If you have not completed your brief yet, go back and do that first. You need your purpose, end users, and requirements before you can complete this design section.
These examples show how an idea can change and improve over time.
Now lets generate some ideas