Evaluation

The Evaluation:

Writing your evaluation report

Your evaluation report is a collection of the thoughts, reflections and judgements you have made during both the designing and making stages of your project In particular, consider how these choices and changes to your work have improved the final outcome and what you have learnt from this experience which will make you a better designer in the future.

You might consider splitting your report into two sections to reflect the two different stages of the process, ie:

1 Evaluating throughout the process of designing and making. This includes evaluating the appropriateness of your starting point, your initial research, design ideas, development, plan of making and the actual making of your product.

2 Testing and evaluating the performance of your final product. For this to be thorough, your project needs to be completed and capable of being tested and evaluated by the client, in the environment for which it was designed.

The process of designing and making

This is not a description or diary of what you did, or how you did It. This part of your report should focus upon those aspects of your designing and making where you had to make choices about your project or reconsider your proposed intentions. If you pull together the comments you have made in response to the evaluation points of this handbook, you will find that you can write a couple of sentences or a paragraph on each of the parts of your project. Use sketches or photographs to support your views and opinions.

Consider the following questions:

Designing

• Explain your reasons for selecting your starting point. If you were to tackle this project again, would you still think it was a suitable choice? If not, what would you do next time around?

• Discuss the most successful and least successful parts of your research. Were there any significant gaps in your research that you discovered as the project developed?

• Was your design specification as detailed as it should have been? What might you have added?

• Did your initial ideas meet your design specification?

• Which ideas did you choose to develop and why?

• What were the views of your client about your initial and developed ideas?

• What were the most important/successful features of your final design?

• What were the least successful features?

• Did your final design fully meet your design specification?

• Did you leave anything out of your design specification?

Making

• Why did you choose the particular materials, ingredients or components for your final product?

• Would you reconsider the materials and processes you used due to problems you encountered whilst making?

• During the making of the project, what parts were you pleased with and why?

• What aspects of your making could be improved and how?

• What new skills did you learn? Did your lack of experience in the application of these skills limit the quality of your work?

• How did you manage the time available for this project? Could you manage your time more efficiently in future projects?

• If you were to repeat the designing and making of this project, what would you do differently second time around? This part is essential – no evaluation is complete without suggesting some improvement to what you have done.

Evaluating and testing the final product

Here are a set of questions you might ask about your work when you are evaluating and testing the final product.

Write a sentence or paragraph about each of these questions to produce your final report- Use sketches or photographs to support your statements.

Consider the following questions:

• Look critically at your final product- What do you believe to be its strengths and weaknesses? • Does it work as you had intended? If not, why not? To what extent does it meet your proposed intention?

• Is it easy to use?

• Have problems arisen due to constraints around materials or your limited skills and expertise?

• Does the visual appeal of the product match the intended vision of your final design? If not, why not?

• Test out your product in the most appropriate way Gather the opinions of your client(s).

• Does your product meet the needs of your client(s)?

• Is your product cost-effective?

• Are there any environmental concerns?

• How could your product be improved? You could include sketches of your proposed improvements.

Final note about your evaluation report When writing evaluation reports, remember that you are reflecting upon what you have learnt about designing and making as a result of the project.

Your teacher or the examiner does not want to hear “... everything went well” as we all know, this is not what happens in the real world. Your teacher and the examiners are looking for your ability to analyse the project. You need to draw out, in a thoughtful and critical way, those aspects of your work that informed your thinking and prompted changes in direction. It is this flexibility and confidence to make sensible changes in direction as your work evolves which will signal that you are a good designer and also impress the people who mark your work.

IF YOU FOLLOW THIS HANDBOOK and IF you produce good quality well finished and complete work you have every chance of achieving the highest grades.

If you choose not to do so you will not achieve the grades you so easily could.

The rest is up to you.