How to choose your design

How to choose a Design

So... you have created a range of feasible designs. (That is, you have invested about the same amount of thought and time in each one.) Now, how do you choose the

 best design?

A simple way is to create a common scoring system for all of them and see which one wins! 

Start by creating a table with 5 columns (Description + your number of designs). As for rows, you'll need to count your Design Specifications and then add 2 to that number: 

1 for the header and 1 for the totals.  Let's say I made a (really bad) Design Specification with 3 items. Then my table would look something like this...

Then you need a scoring system. A simple, but very effective one could be...

0 = Does not meet spec in any way

1 = Partially meets spec

2 = Completely meets spec

Now, I have a tie between two designs, but I need to choose which one will be my final design. I could flip a coin. However, I can also combine the best of Designs #2 and #3 and come up with a hybrid. That's okay because the next step in Criterion B requires that the student "develops accurate planning drawings/diagrams and outlines requirements for the creation of the chosen solution."

So, not only can I combine the designs that tied for the highest score, I can also change my design specifications, which is good because I didn't do a good job on them to start with since I only had 3 of them.  HOWEVER, I cannot change my original specifications. I must put the new specifications in an appendix to my Criterion B document.