DRAFT — under teacher review.

Design Principles vs UX Characteristics — Two Separate Lists

Hamilton College · Year 12 · 2026

One of the most reliable ways to lose marks in C5-2 is to mix up the seven design principles with the four UX characteristics, or to count usability once in each list and assume you have covered both. These are two distinct frameworks defined in the study design — you must use the right name from the right list at the right time.

The two lists, side by side

Design Principles (7 items)	UX Characteristics (4 items)
Alignment	Affordance
Balance	Interoperability
Contrast	Security
Space	Usability
Text formatting
Usability
Navigation

Notice that Usability appears in both lists — but it means slightly different things in each context:

As a design principle, usability is about the visual and structural choices that make an interface easy to operate: consistency, clear feedback, error prevention.
As a UX characteristic, usability is the overall ease-of-use measure across efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction.

If you annotate a mock-up by saying "I applied usability by making the buttons large", you have referenced the design principle. If your design log entry says "The high usability of this interface is demonstrated by the 3-second task completion in user testing", you are addressing the UX characteristic.

What VCAA asks for at each band

The C5-2 rubric builds from listing to identifying to describing to documenting to demonstrating. The key verb for each band applies to both lists:

Band	What you must do
1–2	List items from each list that you considered
3–4	Briefly identify how design principles appear in your mock-ups
5–6	Describe how design principles appear — with reference to appearance and functionality
7–8	Document how relevant UX characteristics have been applied — this is where you bring in affordance, interoperability, security and usability with specific evidence
9–10	Demonstrate and explain — argue that your choices produce the UX outcomes, not just that you made the choices

The 9–10 band specifically requires you to work across both lists in a connected way. An annotation that says "I used contrast (design principle) to make the login button more visible, improving affordance (UX characteristic) for first-time users" is the kind of cross-list reasoning VCAA is checking for.

The slot-five validation trap

The Annotation validation has six slots. Slot five requires you to use one design principle and one UX characteristic in a single annotation entry. If you write two design principles and call one of them a UX characteristic, the slot is marked empty regardless of the quality of your writing.

Checklist for each annotation slot:

Named the design principle correctly (from the list of 7)
Named the UX characteristic correctly (from the list of 4) — if required for this slot
Described how the principle was applied in terms of appearance or functionality (not just "I used it")
Used the correct verb level for the band you are targeting

Common mistakes

Mistake 1: "UX" as a catch-all

~~"I considered UX in my design."~~

"UX" is not on either list. The study design names four specific UX characteristics. You must name the one you mean: affordance, interoperability, security or usability.

Mistake 2: Listing design principles under UX and vice versa

~~"The UX characteristics I used were: alignment, contrast, and affordance."~~

Alignment and contrast are design principles, not UX characteristics. A marker reading this loses confidence in your vocabulary immediately.

Mistake 3: Describing usability once and assuming you have covered both lists

Because usability appears in both lists, students sometimes write one sentence and consider both boxes ticked. You need separate evidence: one piece of annotation evidence for usability as a design-principle decision, and a different piece showing the UX-characteristic measure of how easy your system actually is to use.