L3 - Design Final

Put together your final design so it clearly shows the outcome you are going to develop.

Your final design should bring together the strongest parts of your ideas, refinement, feedback, and decisions into one clear design package. It should be detailed enough that someone else could understand what you are making, how it should work, and what it should look and feel like.

Depending on your outcome, your final design may include:

• a main final mockup, model, screen, scene, or layout

• key screens, pages, levels, panels, assets, parts, or views

• annotations explaining important design choices

• style details such as colours, typography, visual style, mood, materials, or sound

• user flow, gameplay flow, storyboard, sequence, system flow, or assembly flow

• technical or production notes that would help with development

• file, export, format, size, or naming details where relevant

Your final design should be finished-looking, specific, and practical. It does not need to be perfect, but it should be clear enough to guide the development stage.

Use the examples in the slides to help you decide what evidence best fits your outcome type.

Your evaluation explains why your final design is appropriate for its purpose, end users, and wider context.

This is where you look back at the design process and explain how your decisions were informed by research, feedback, modelling, testing, user experience methods, and relevant implications.

Your evaluation should show that you can justify your chosen design, not just describe it.

Use your final design, earlier research, feedback, and design evidence to explain why your chosen design is suitable.

Your evaluation should not just describe your design. It should explain why your design is appropriate for the purpose, end users, and wider context. 

1. Your chosen design

Briefly describe the final design you have chosen.

Explain:

• what the outcome is

• who it is for

• what problem, need, or opportunity it responds to

• what the main design features are

This section should give the reader a clear overview before you begin evaluating your decisions.

2. Justify why your design is suitable for the purpose and end users 

Explain why your chosen final design is appropriate for its intended purpose and target users.

You could discuss:

• how the design supports what the user needs to do

• how the design is usable, accessible, engaging, or appropriate for the target audience

• how the style, layout, features, structure, or interaction choices suit the users

• how feedback, testing, research, or conventions support your design choices

• why this design direction was stronger than other options you considered

For example: I chose a side-scrolling 2D platformer style because younger players are already familiar with this format. I considered a top-down RPG, but feedback showed that navigation was less intuitive for my target audience. The side-scrolling format made the goal clearer and kept the gameplay easier to understand. 

3. Evaluate and justify your user experience methodologies 

Explain how you used user experience methodologies to develop and improve your design. You need to do more than list the methods — you should evaluate how useful they were and justify why they were appropriate for your outcome, users, and design process. 

These could include: surveys or interviews, personas or user profiles, user journeys, wireframes, mockups, models, or storyboards, usability testing, playtesting, observation, A/B testing, feedback from users or stakeholders

For each method, explain:

• how you used it

• what information or feedback it gave you

• how it helped improve or confirm your design

• how effective it was

• why it was a suitable method for your users and outcome

• any limitations it had

For example: I used playtesting with a small group of 12–14 year olds during early development. This was effective because I could directly observe where players became confused in the level layout. It helped me improve the placement of platforms and instructions. I chose playtesting because my outcome is interactive, so watching users play gave more useful evidence than only asking them questions afterwards. A limitation was that I only tested with a small group, so the feedback may not represent all players in my target audience.

A strong response should show that you understand why the UX methods were useful, not just that you completed them. 

4. Relevant Implications  

Evaluate how your design addresses the relevant implications that matter most for your outcome.

Choose at least 3–5 relevant implications. You do not need to cover every implication.

You could consider:

• Cultural - Does your design represent people, cultures, or ideas respectfully?

• Legal - Have you followed copyright, licensing, or usage rules?

• Social - Could your outcome influence behaviour, relationships, communication, or wellbeing?

• Ethical - Is your outcome responsible, safe, and appropriate for the audience?

• Accessibility - Can people with different needs use or understand the outcome?

• Intellectual property - Have you created original work or credited others correctly?

• Privacy - Does your outcome collect, store, or use personal information safely?

• Usability - Is the outcome easy and intuitive to use?

• Functionality - Does it work as intended?

• Aesthetics - Does the visual style suit the purpose and audience?

• Sustainability / future-proofing - Is it efficient, responsible, maintainable, or designed to last?

• End-user considerations - Does it suit the needs, preferences, age, context, or abilities of the users?

• Health and safety - Is it safe to use, build, view, or interact with?

For each implication, explain:

• what issue or consideration mattered

• what design decision you made

• why that decision was appropriate

• what impact it had on the final design

For example: I used Creative Commons music in my game to avoid copyright issues. This is important because distributing a game with unlicensed music could cause legal problems. I also credited the creator on the title screen so the source of the music was clear.

For example: I checked my colour scheme using an online contrast checker. This helped me improve accessibility for users with visual impairments or colour blindness. After testing, I adjusted the button colours to improve contrast, which also made the interface clearer for all users.

5. Future Development

Suggest meaningful improvements or next steps for your design, and justify how these would make the outcome more effective, usable, sustainable, accessible, or appropriate in the future.

These should come from your evaluation, feedback, testing, or remaining limitations, so your future development ideas are clearly connected to evidence. 

You could discuss:

• features you would add later

• support for more users or different users

• new technology you could include

• improvements to accessibility, usability, performance, or style

• further testing or feedback you would complete

• how the outcome could be maintained or extended over time

For example: In future development, I would add adaptive difficulty to the game. This would change the challenge level based on the player’s performance. This would make the game more engaging because user feedback showed that some players found the early levels too easy while others needed more support.

6. Conclusion

Finish by making an overall judgement about your final design.

Summarise how your design:

• meets the purpose and user needs

• was improved through UX methods, feedback, or testing

• addresses relevant implications

• follows suitable conventions and best practices

• is appropriate for the purpose and end users

End with a final reflection on what worked well, what you learned, or what you would do differently next time.