About

Use the Test Questions sheet in the TEST stage to get your user’s opinions of your design idea. Your user is the person for whom you are designing. The TEST stage is when you show your design model to your users for them to try it out for themselves. Testing is how you improve your design idea. If your design idea is successful, good. But, if you find a fault, or if your design idea fails, that is also a good test. Because if something fails while it is being designed, that is preferable to failing later when it is being used. Imagine a bridge collapsing when it is being designed and stress tested, that is much preferable to a bridge failing when it is in use by car or train passengers. Therefore, your aim during the TEST stage is to find errors in your design idea.​​​​​​​​​​​​
 

What you need

• A notepad and pen.
• One or two student-designers to hold the test.
• At least one user to do the test.
• About an hour to test your design model.

How it’s done

Before you begin, think about what you must test. If you do a good test, you will find out if your design idea is successful or not. Here are some questions for you to ask the user during your test. You may change the questions to suit the design topic. Write the questions that you will ask down on a notepad before the test.

• Function
  • Does it do what it should do?
  • Does it work?
  • Is it safe, or is it harmful?
  • Is it essential, or useful, or enjoyable, or fun?
  • Is it comfortable to use or not?
• Size and shape
  • Is it the right size?
  • Is it too much or too little in some dimensions?
  • Does it have the right shape to do the job?
  • Is it attractive or not?
• Materials
  • Are the materials right for the job?
  • Will the materials be strong enough to do the job?
  • Will the materials be too costly or not?

Tips

• Finding something wrong with your design idea will surely be disappointing, but it also means that you had a successful test.