DRAFT — under teacher review.

Activity — Design a Hot Cross Bun Matrix

The Hamilton and Alexandra College · Year 12 · 2026

The fastest way to learn how to design an evaluation matrix is to build one for something real — and edible. CHOICE rates hot cross buns with the same discipline it rates headphones; in this activity, so will you. By the end you'll have designed, run and defended an evaluation matrix — the exact skill you need for C4-2 and Unit 4 Outcome 1, where the thing you're judging is your own software.

🎯 Watch first: notice the panel scores against agreed criteria. Your job today is to decide those criteria — and defend them.

The challenge

We have two or three brands of hot cross buns. Working as a review panel, you will design an evaluation matrix, use it to crown a winner, and justify every design decision — exactly as you would for a software evaluation.

Step 1 — Make the design decisions before you taste

This is the whole point: criteria come first, never invented afterwards to crown the bun you happened to like. Working from the seven design decisions, agree on:

Who you're recommending for — the persona drives everything. "Best bun" is meaningless; "best bun for a family's Easter breakfast" tells you what to measure.
Your criteria — the handful that decide it for that person.
How each is measured — a blind panel rating, or something objective like price-per-bun or counting fruit pieces.
Weights, justified — where your point of view lives.
A scale (use 0–5), and what you deliberately exclude (and why).

A worked design for the persona "a family buying for Easter breakfast":

Criterion	Weight	How you'll measure it
Taste	35%	Blind panel rating, 0–5
Texture & freshness	20%	Blind panel rating
Fruit & spice	20%	Blind panel rating
Value	15%	Price per bun → converted to a 0–5 score
Appearance	10%	Rating

Deliberately excluded: packaging — it doesn't change how the bun eats.

Two habits here are real evaluation skills, not just fairness:

Blind it. Label the brands A, B, C with the names hidden. If you can see the brand, the brand scores it for you — that's bias, and controlling for it is part of doing evaluation properly.
Score on your own first, then compare. If everyone just agrees with whoever speaks loudest, you've measured confidence, not buns.

Apply your weights to each brand's scores to get a weighted total.

Step 3 — Write the verdict

Explain which bun proceeds, citing at least two criteria and their scores.
Justify it by naming the rival: what does your winner give up compared with the runner-up, and why is that trade-off worth it for your persona?

Step 4 — Stress-test your matrix

Swap the persona. Re-weight for a uni student on a tight budget (value jumps) or someone who can't stand sultanas (fruit might even score against a bun). Does the winner change? It should — that's the lesson.
Try to game it. Could one inflated weight force a favourite to win?
Hunt the missing criterion. Aroma? Dietary needs? Size?

Your scoring sheet

Copy this and fill it in:

Criterion (weight)	Method	Brand A	Brand B	Brand C



Weighted total / 5

Why this matters

The buns are a stand-in. The design decisions are identical when you evaluate your own software design ideas in C4-2 and your finished solution in Unit 4 Outcome 1 — except there you can't taste the answer, so designing and defending the criteria first matters even more.