Lesson video

Hi, my name is Mr. Brown, and welcome to this lesson.

Present the book to the user.

And today we are going to be thinking a lot about how we can present their final product to the user, get their evaluation, get their feedback, and also think about our own thoughts about how the project has gone as well.

So without further ado, we'll get on with the lesson and we'll talk about the learning outcome and the lesson outline.

So today's learning outcome is about responding to user feedback and evaluate your design thinking.

The key words today, manufacturers.

So manufacturers are people who make product.

Evaluating, evaluating is checking if a product is good or if it needs improving in any way.

Aesthetics is how a product looks.

So if it's aesthetically pleasing, does it look good? And the last one is environmental impact.

Now these are ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials so that we reduce the amount of wastage that we can actually have within our products.

We'll be covering all of those throughout this slide deck.

The lesson outline today of present the book to the user is we'll have two learning cycles.

First one is product testing, and the second one is product evaluation.

And of course we're going to be starting with learning cycle one, product testing.

So what is product testing? Well, manufacturers, that's people who make the products, they always test products before they go out to the end user.

And they do this for a number of reasons.

They do this to make sure that their products are safe, that their products work and that it's finished to a high standard.

So there's always a testing element here to make sure that this has been done well, so that when it does roll out to full production, then they know that it is safe and that it works and that it's up to really good high standard.

Now once the testing has taken place, this gives the manufacturer some chance to solve any problems that may have come up during the testing.

Also allows them to update any safety requirements.

So new safety requirements might have come in, or things may be noticed during the testing.

So it's a chance for the products to be updated to make sure that they're compliant.

And then lastly, to think about the user requirements.

Now the user may have changed their minds, they may have decided they wanted something slightly different and may have noticed something during the testing.

And then it's a good chance to update these before they go out for wider production.

Now the manufacturers, they test for all of these reasons and once they've done the testing, they can then check that the products meets the user requirements, is safe, and is fit for purpose.

Check for understanding.

So why do manufacturers test products? Is it because A, they check the product works.

B, they check it's safe to use.

Or C, they don't test products? Think about this question carefully.

There may be more than one answer.

Okay, off you go.

That's right, there was more than one answer.

And it's A and B.

So manufacturers test products to check that the product works and also to check that it's safe to use, they do test products.

C is incorrect.

Stating that they don't test products when actually manufacturers do.

Okay, here's Sophia.

She wants to find out if her interactive page that she has made meets the needs of the user.

And Jacob here he thinks by testing the page with the user, he will be able to understand if it works and what they think about it.

Now, when you are testing with the user and thinking about how it works, you might notice things that don't work as well.

And you might think about where improvements might be made.

So you are going to be testing your interactive page with your user.

And what I want you to do is to go through very carefully and think about are there any improvements that could be made as you're doing the testing, this will all become very clear as we get onto task A.

Check for understanding here.

True or false, feedback gives the designer an understanding if the product meets the needs of the user.

Is that true or is that false? Yes, it's true.

Well done.

So let's think about the reasons why.

Now, the reasons why feedback gives designers an understanding if product meets the needs of the user.

Is it helps them focus on ways to improve the products and to solve problems that may have come up with the product when it's being used by the end user.

Now when we have feedback, sometimes it can be difficult to hear and what we need to do is when we are receiving feedback, we need to take it as positive as we can.

There might be that the user says they don't actually like certain aspects of the product, and that's quite hard for us to actually take as designers.

However, what we've got to do is think about how we can turn those into positives about how we can make it an even better product.

But we need to remember to take feedback as being helpful and positive and constructive and thoughtful.

All of these things, if we approach feedback as being in these four things, really does help us to consider how we can take and use feedback positively.

So when we are testing products, a designer might ask questions to their user.

And some of the questions they might be thinking about are function.

So what the product actually does, the needs of the user, so thinking about who it is for, and what they actually wanted, performance of how it actually works.

Aesthetics, remember that what it looks like and whether it's aesthetically pleasing, whether the user thinks that it looks good.

And materials, so discussing what sort of materials the product is actually made from.

Now often you will find these within a design specification as five elements of things that we are trying to do when we are considering the user and the end product about what we want it to actually do.

Going back to evaluate and to get feedback, it's worth revisiting these five areas and talking them through with the user.

Check for understanding.

True or false.

Product testing should only be tested if the product works.

Is that true or false? That's right.

It's false.

But why? Well, it's really important to get feedback about materials, aesthetics, and the user needs.

From asking these questions because it might be that it works, but actually it's really important that we consider all different aspects.

The user might have come up with a really good idea during the testing that we might want to take back and change that we haven't actually considered before.

This is why it's really worthwhile testing.

Even though we think it's absolutely perfect, the user might come up with another idea.

Okay, here are Sophia's questions about her book that she wants to test with her classmates.

So she's thought about some questions she's going to ask her user.

What moves on the page? How does the page do what you wanted? How do you think the movement works? What do you think about the materials that have been used? How do you think it could be improved and what do you think about how it has been decorated? And there you can see within all of those questions, elements of those five areas we talked about on the last slide.

So your turn now.

So on task A, task A is to think of questions that you can ask the user as they're testing the interactive page.

So you'll go to the user, you'll give them the interactive page, they'll look at it, they'll read it, they'll explore it.

But you need to think of questions that you are going to ask them.

Things that you really want to find out about.

So you might want to think about asking about the function, the needs of the user, the performance, the aesthetics and the materials.

So you've got an example of an interactive page there about sailing boats that someone's completed.

That would be taken to the user.

And then questions about function, aesthetics, performance.

The user and materials will be asked of the user as they are exploring the page that we've created.

Now there is a second part to this.

So this is just part one.

First of all, think of the questions and write down some questions that you are going to be using.

Right, I told you there's going to be another section.

So we've got the questions, you've got your questions ready and it's now time to return to the user that you design the product for.

So test the page with them, ask them questions about the product.

Now this might mean you might need to go to another classroom.

The user might be in a younger age group.

It could be that it's actually within your class.

It depends upon how you've organised it, but you need to allow time to go and talk to them.

To explore it and to ask the questions.

Now that's the second part of task A.

The third part of task A is after you've actually done that testing and you've talked to the user about the product, you need to have plenty of time to be able to think about what you might change with the design.

It might be a small change, it could be you might need a bigger change, but see what the user thinks first, come back and then spend a bit of time actually going through and improving your product.

Okay, so we've got questions.

You now need to go and ask the questions and then you're going to use the feedback from the user to improve your product however you feel that you need to Okay, this is the big one.

Off you go, enjoy yourselves and have confidence and remember to take the feedback positively.

Okay, off you go.

Welcome back, so here's some example about how some of the feedback may have gone.

So Sophia had a talk with Jacob, and these were some of his views.

So she asked, "What do you think about how the product moved?" And he, "It's very creative and very clever the way the boat moves without you seeing how it moves." So that's some really nice positive feedback there.

And then Sophia asked, well what didn't work so well? What should she change next time? And Jacob said that actually it could have been a bit more colourful and the linkage was a bit wobbly.

So Sophia went back and thought about her design and looked at it and she actually made some changes.

So the changes she made was she used some brighter felt tip pens and some coloured card and used those really cleverly to add more colour and interest to the page.

So she also thought about what Jacob said about the linkage being a bit wobbly.

And what she did was instead of having just one bridge, she actually added a second bridge to keep her linkage in place.

Now you may well have come back and made some subtle changes or some bigger changes.

That's entirely up to what your design was like and what the feedback of the user was.

But I hope you're feeling positive about the products that you've produced and that you've reflected and done some really good interesting ways of improving your product.

Right? Well done.

We're gonna be moving on to now lesson cycle two.

Lesson cycle two is about product evaluation.

Now you have tested your interactive page and you may have made some changes, but we're now going to evaluate what you've actually done.

Evaluations can review the process that's taken place.

So it's looking back at the whole entire project of how you made it all the different things that you did, all the learning that you've made during making it.

And it's not just a time for looking at the user feedback that you did in task A, in lesson cycle one, but it's also thinking about your feedback as well and your thoughts making your personal contribution too.

Check for understanding.

Evaluating does not mean reviewing the plans and ideas, the working models or just the final product, which of these is not part of evaluating? That's right.

The one that's not part of evaluation is reviewing just the final product.

It isn't about the final product, it's about the whole process that you've gone through.

So not just what has been produced at the end, but it's the models that you've made.

It's all the plans and ideas right back at the beginning.

Then the working models that may have changed, but it's also, it will include the final product, but it's not just about the final product, it's considering the whole process that you've gone through.

A good way of thinking and structuring about evaluation is thinking about that design specification we looked at in task A and in learning cycle one.

So again, I'll go through these function, user, performance, aesthetics and materials.

So that's what it did, the feedback from the user, how well it worked, what it looked like, and what it was made from.

Now there is also one other section that I want to refer to today.

And that is environmental impact.

So thinking about the resources that we've actually used, I'm gonna go into a bit more detail about that.

So the first thing is did you reduce the materials that you were going to use? So did you use as many as little materials as possible so you caused less environmental impact? Did you reuse materials? Perhaps there was a bridge that didn't quite work for one linkage, but you are able to use it for another part of the linkage.

So how did you reuse the materials? Did you recycle materials? It could be that there is a box of scrap pieces of card that where you've been able to reuse and recycle some of that material.

That's a really good way of saving materials and not using materials when we don't need to.

So I think it's a good idea to consider this as part of the evaluation.

Check for understanding.

Environmental impact considers: either reducing, reusing and recycling, or repairing, reusing and recycling.

Or reducing rebuilding and recycling.

Which of these three is correct? That's right, it's the first one.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Those are the three components of what we are looking at when we're considering environmental impact, well done.

Lucas here has done an evaluation and he's evaluated the function.

So he said, "We built an interactive book for Year Two class, the pages needed to have moving parts.

Ours was a bee moving side to side." He then thought about the user feedback that he got.

We asked year two children what they thought.

They liked the movement but they wanted to have some brighter colours.

He then thought about performance and the aesthetics together.

So the mechanism was a bit tricky as the linkage kept jamming, but we moved one lever and then it worked.

So he just adjusted one lever and then it worked.

Both the user and ourselves liked the flower picture and the page title.

So aesthetically it's come out quite well.

He then evaluated the materials and the environmental impact.

The year two children liked the use of card but would like to have had more information boxes.

We tried to use off cuts of card for our boxes and parts of the linkage.

And you can see there in a very brief way, we've got two slides which show how Lucas has considered all six areas that we've spoken about.

On to you now.

So it's your turn to evaluate your whole process remember.

not just the final product but about everything that you've learned.

So can you think about evaluating the interactive page under six different headings? It doesn't have to be a lot of writing in each section, but do try to think about all of these different sections.

So function, what did it do? User, feedback from the user.

Performance, so how well did it work? Aesthetics, what it looked like.

Materials, what it was made from.

And also the environmental impact.

So what did you reduce, what did you reuse? What did you recycle? And that's really important to think about the whole process remember here, not just the final product.

So you might be thinking about the function, but actually how did you learn about the function about what it did? What was the learning that you gathered? So what information did you need to know before you started making it? Information about linkages, for example.

With aesthetics, what did it look like? You can talk about the final product, but maybe you tried something earlier in one of the prototypes that you made and it didn't quite work and you needed to make it different.

That is all part of the learning process and there's a really good evaluation.

Okay, over to you now, what I would like you to do is to write some short sentences about each of the sections of the evaluation.

Okay, off you go.

Okay, here's some feedback from task B of this learning cycle.

So Sophia's evaluation, she did the sailing boat example that you've got there.

Her evaluation looked a bit like this.

So when she was thinking about function, she thought, well actually we learned about different types of linkages.

We chose a parallel linkage which showed a boat moving side to side.

Next information about sailing boat using wind.

And you can see that in the picture that's there in the GIF there User, so year two children liked her page about boats, but they did suggest putting more information about how to keep safe on a sailing boat.

And you can actually see from that GIF that's there, she's actually added that already.

Performance, the linkage was hard to fit onto the page than she originally thought.

But then by using two bridges, she actually managed to keep the mechanism in place.

Aesthetics, she tried copying sailing boat designs, but she wasn't happy until she'd used some felt tips to make it brighter and it looked great.

So she was really pleased with the aesthetics in the end.

With materials, she used paper and card for most of the page and she used light brown coloured card for the background and then a bright coloured card for the sea.

The environment, so when she was thinking about the environment, she reused the parallel linkage she used as a prototype and then she reduced materials by using card off cuts for the sea and for the boat.

So she used pieces of card that were lying around.

Let's go through the summary of today's lesson, presenting the product with the user.

Firstly, we've learned that testing the product with the user helps us get feedback.

We now know that feedback can aid improving our designs.

And we know that evaluating the design specification helps us review what we've learned.

Thank you very much for being with me today.

I hope you've had a really good lesson.

There's been a lot to cover.

You've done superbly well, so well done.

You've got your finished interactive page, and you've worked incredibly hard to produce this page and review it and get feedback and evaluate the whole success of the product.

So well done today and I'll see you next time.