C04 — Skills in Generating Design Ideas and Developing Evaluation Criteria

The Hamilton and Alexandra College · Year 12 · 2026

Criterion 4 covers two linked tasks: generating design ideas using ideation techniques (mood boards, brainstorming, mind mapping, sketches), and developing evaluation criteria that connect those ideas back to your SRS. You will annotate all design work and build an evaluation matrix that explains and justifies which design elements should proceed to detailed designs.

Foundations

• Essential Terms — the C04 glossary; click a term to expand its definition

🎬 Walkthrough videos

• C4 Design Ideas and Evaluation Explained — two short videos on the C4-1 design pack (design defence) and C4-2 evaluation matrix (criteria, efficiency vs effectiveness, explain vs justify)

Checkpoints

What you produce and submit for each indicator:

• C4-1 Checkpoint — Your Design Pack — the five design-pack artefacts, how annotations move you up the bands, and an "Am I ready?" self-check (due T2W7, 60% of C4)
• C4-2 Checkpoint — Your Evaluation Matrix — your criteria (name · link · measure) and draft matrix, the verb ladder, and an "Am I ready?" self-check (due T2W7, 40% of C4)

Key concepts

Short explainers for the concepts most commonly confused or under-done at each rubric band:

• Mood Boards — what a mood board is (and isn't), a worked example built around one feeling, and a video; for the C4-1 design pack
• Evaluation vs Testing — why a solution can pass all tests and still fail evaluation; the exact distinction the 7–10 band requires you to hold
• Efficiency vs Effectiveness — side-by-side scenario; how each term maps to separate evaluation matrix tables; why getting this wrong costs marks
• Evaluation Criteria and the SRS — why every criterion must trace to a numbered SRS requirement, with worked counter-examples and a pre-submission checklist
• Designing an Evaluation Matrix — how to design a matrix from first principles (seven justified decisions), reverse-engineering a CHOICE magazine test; for C4-2 and U4 O1
• Activity — Design a Hot Cross Bun Matrix — a hands-on taste-test challenge that practises the seven design decisions before you apply them to software
• C04 → C05 — Choose, then Detail — how this criterion (choose which idea) differs from C05 (detail the chosen idea); breadth vs depth

Resources

• C04 Resources — per-topic reading and external resources for ideation techniques, annotation, evaluation criteria, efficiency and effectiveness, and SRS-linked criteria

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