Hello there.

My name is Mrs. Dami.

Thank you for joining me for your design and technology lesson today.

Let's get started.

Our outcome for today is I can evaluate the form and function of existing products.

The big question today is do you think about form or function more when you buy a product? And that might be different depending on the product that you are gonna be buying.

Today we are gonna explore the role that function and form play in creating a good design.

We're gonna look at a few products that you might have around your own homes, but some that you might not.

So I hope you're feeling inquisitive.

Let's get going.

You're probably gonna hear me talk about these words quite a bit today.

So let's recap.

Function is the purpose of a product.

Form is a particular shape linked to aesthetics.

Good design combines function and form.

Subjective is a view based on personal opinion.

And user is who you are designing for.

We have three learning cycles in our lesson today.

The first one, we're gonna investigate form and function.

Second, we're gonna analyse form and functional products.

Lastly, we're gonna evaluate form and functional products.

So let's get going with investigation.

You may have come across these subheadings when analysing products before.

Today in our lesson, we are gonna focus in on both function and form.

Function is the purpose of a product.

We might consider when we think about function, what does the product actually do? How well does it achieve that function? Would the user find it easy to use or to operate? How easy is it to clean? And do the materials help achieve the function? So for example, it might be transparent so that you can see what is inside.

Let's have our first check-in.

What are the functions of these three products? Pause your video, come back to me when you've had a go.

You may have got a child's water bottle to have a portable drink, fruit juicer to juice fruit and the teapot to brew tea.

Well done if you got those right.

So moving on to form.

Form, if you remember, is a particular shape linked to aesthetics.

Things we might like to ask ourselves.

Would the user think the product is beautiful? And obviously, lots of users, different opinions.

Do the materials produce a certain finish? For example, matte or shiny? Does the form help the user to understand the function? For example, some products have safety buttons or buttons that they want to alert people to and they often do those in a different colour, such as red to draw the user's attention to them.

Would you consider the form of these three products beautiful? Have a bit of a think.

Perhaps tell the person next to you or tell me.

Come back to me when you're ready.

Jacob and Sofia took the teapot.

Jacob said, "I do not think it is beautiful.

It looks very old fashioned.

I prefer the look of metal teapots." Sofia said, "I think it's very beautiful and would go perfectly in my kitchen." I must say I agree with Sofia because this is my teapot.

Beauty is subjective and based on personal opinion.

Just as you saw with Jacob and Sofia, they both had contrasting opinions about the teapot.

Even if two people do have contrasting opinions, they are equally valid as long as they can justify them.

It is very important as designers to take into account the opinions of the user so that we are designing products that really will be wanted by the user and ultimately, bought.

In what ways can you find out the opinions of your user? Have a think back to some of your design and technology lessons where you might have thought about this before.

Ideas could include observations, perhaps watching a user interact with a product.

Focus group studies where you get a group of users together to discuss the product.

Sometimes they're a bit more honest when they're in a group.

And then questionnaires and interviews.

Carefully thought out questions to the user about the product can help you to find out all sorts of interesting things, which can help then reflect in your designing when you go to develop an idea.

So true and false.

If one user describes the product as beautiful, then all users must share the same opinion.

What do you think? Well done if you got false.

So why? Beauty is subjective and based on personal opinion.

Even if two users have contrasting opinions, they are equally valid as long as they can justify them.

Let's have a practise then.

Considering form, rank the following fruit juicers in order from your favourite to your least favourite.

Then once you've done that, justify your order.

So let's take a look at the fruit juicers.

Remember, we're doing this considering form, so think about the way that they look, think about their shape, think about their materials, think about their style.

What do you think? What is your personal opinion? Have a go.

Pause the video.

Come back to me when you're ready.

Hopefully you've had time to put the fruit juicers into your own personal order.

Laura considered the form of the juicers and she ranked them.

She started with A as her favourite because she said it looks simple, takes up a small amount of space and would blend into her kitchen.

She then went on to choose C because it's minimalistic.

She then went for D.

She said, "It's really practical, but the form is not beautiful to me." Notice here where she really did consider form over function.

E.

She said, "I don't think the form of E is good because the use of wood in kitchens does not appeal to me." And lastly, she chose B because she said, "It looks like a spider and I don't like spiders." Did your order go the same as Laura's or was yours slightly different? Have a little look and compare.

Andeep considered the form of the juicers and he ranked his differently to Laura.

He actually started off with B, which was Laura's least favourite.

He said, "I chose B as my favourite because it looks futuristic and I love it." He then went on to C because he liked the use of glass.

Then A, he said it's practical, but he found the form rather boring.

D, he didn't like the thin handles.

And E, he said it looked very old fashioned, so it was his least favourite.

How does yours compare to both Laura and Andeep's? I bet lots of you have got completely different orders.

And that's okay as long as you can justify them.

This time you're gonna rank the fruit juicers in order from favourite to least favourite, but this time, you're going to really consider the function.

Last time was form.

This time is function.

Once you have done that, you're then going to justify your favourite.

Now, this is going to be more difficult to do because obviously, you're very unlikely to have all of these fruit juicers in front of you.

So look really carefully at the pictures.

Think about how you might use them, how they might juice the fruit successfully or not so successfully, whether they might gather up the pips or not gather up the pips, and how you might be able to gather the juice and then consequently, pour the juice.

Take a moment to really have a good look at these.

I look forward to hearing what you think.

Laura and Andeep chose different orders due to their personal opinions.

Let's take a look at their justifications.

Laura chose A.

She said, "It's the most functional juicer.

It is easy to use and press the fruit down whilst twisting and has a spout to pour the juice out easily." In contrast, Andeep chose D, saying he thinks D would be the most successful at catching pips.

I wonder whether you chose either A or D or whether you chose a completely different one.

Again, it's absolutely fine as long as you can justify your reasoning and your answer.

Always remember to consider the user's opinions.

As we've just shown, lots of people have different opinions when it comes to design.

Onto our second learning cycle.

Analyse form and function of products.

It is common that some products might have more of a focus on function or more of a focus on form.

Let's recap those two words.

Function is the purpose of a product.

Form is a particular shape linked to aesthetics.

Which of these products may focus more on function than on form? Have a think.

Come back to me when you've had a go.

The screws and the paperclip both focus more on function than on form.

Well done if you got that right.

Some people believe that form should follow function.

What do they mean by this statement? Have a little think.

Jacob is correct in his thinking about form following function.

He says, "It is more important to get the function right and later think about the way that a product looks." The image show two different bags.

Which of these bags consider form over function? And what we mean by that is which one focuses more on the way that it looks than the way that it functions.

Have a think, pause the video and then get back to me.

Well done if you chose the colourful bag on the left.

You can see that that bag has definitely been designed with looks more importantly than function.

Whereas the bag on the right, the black or grey bag, you can clearly see it has got lots of different sections, lots of different pockets.

It looks like you can separate all of your products really easily, focusing on that function really well.

The bag on the left is an example of a fashion product.

Fashion products are those that are popular at a certain time.

Fashion items tend to place more emphasis on form than on function, which is the opposite to our previous slide where we talked about form following function.

Good design is often defined as design that combines both form and function.

Can you think of an example product that you would class as a good design? Andeep says, "My bike is a good design.

It looks great and functions well." If you think about perhaps your bike or a friend's bike, would you consider yours as a good design or is it maybe lacking on either form or function? Have a think.

Come back to me when you're done.

A product cannot be both beautiful and function well.

True or false? Well done if you got false.

So why? A product can do both, but sometimes it is subjective and depends on the user's definition, what they consider beautiful to be.

Time for a practise.

Which of these juicers would you classify as an example of good design? Justify your answer, referring to both form and function.

Remember, good design combines both form and function.

Have a really good look at these juicers again and come back to me when you've got an answer.

Well done for that.

I hope you've had time to share your answers with someone else or with me.

Let's take a look at Laura's answers.

She said, "I would go for juicer A" because based on form, the colours would blend into her kitchen.

Based on function, it collects the juice into a dish and separates the pips.

And it is made of a polymer so it can be easily washed and put in the dishwasher.

That's always a positive for me as well with the dishwasher.

Wow, we're onto our third learning cycle already.

This is where we're gonna evaluate the form and function of products.

Let's get going.

You'll remember that function is the purpose of a product.

Let's apply this now to a product that you may never have seen before or at least I hope you've never seen before.

What does this product do? Pause the video, have a really good look at it.

Think about everything you've learned so far in this lesson.

What could this product do? Here are some clues for your inquisitive minds.

The user could be an adult.

It would definitely be used normally in a kitchen.

The dimensions are 80 by 63 by 50 millimetres.

This, if you look carefully on my arrow, is a blade.

This is the lid that flips open.

And at the bottom there you can see some wheels.

What does this product do? Pause your video.

Have a think with the person next to you or tell me what you think.

I look forward to hearing your answers.

Have you managed to work it out yet? If you haven't, have a little look at this video of me using the product.

So you take the green blade and you pop it inside, close it up and open up the lid.

Then the garlic, yes, garlic, goes inside.

Push it down a little, close it up and then you glide it backwards and forwards along a worktop.

Now, you can see that's a little bit difficult to do with, but soon, it glides really easily.

It's chopping up the garlic as we speak.

You can then open it up, take out the blade, give it a tap to get some garlic off and then turn the product upside down to get the garlic out.

It does need a knife to help get those last few bits out.

But you can see that comes out quite easily.

And that's it without much of the garlic left inside.

So well done if you got that right and guessed that it was a garlic crusher.

If you didn't, hopefully you understood from the video.

Before we can evaluate the garlic crusher, we need to first of all analyse the successful features and those that need to be improved.

So the successful features are it chops garlic into small, consistently sized pieces really quick, as you saw in the video.

It's transparent.

That allows you to see how much rolling is required and whether you need to keep going or not.

It allows you to touch the garlic as little as possible.

And lots of people don't like the smell of garlic on their hands.

So this is a real positive.

It's fun to use.

My two young children love to do this for me when I'm cooking.

It's small and it's compact, fits nicely into a kitchen drawer.

And my favourite, it can go in the dishwasher.

Always a positive.

So function features that could be improved.

You have to take that green blade out, which means therefore it might end up in your washing up bowl.

If your washing up bowl is full of soapy liquid, you might not see it.

So cleaning could be dangerous.

The blade could be lost.

And I have unfortunately lost one of the blades from one of mine and I had to buy the whole product again.

And it can be difficult to remove all of the garlic.

As you saw in the video, I did need to get a knife out to get out the final bits of garlic.

There are four statements here on the left-hand side in the table.

Have a read through them and decide whether they belong to form or to function.

Have a think, pause your video and come back to me when you're ready.

So you may have got function for blade could be lost.

Function for it going in the dishwasher, my favourite point.

Form for it looking futuristic.

And function for it difficult to remove all of the garlic.

Well done if you got those right.

Let's remind ourselves of the meaning of form.

Form is a particular shape linked to aesthetics.

Now, if you remember from the start of the lesson, we said that form is subjective, which means that people have different opinions, but they just need to be able to justify those opinions.

So let me ask you, do you think that the form of this garlic crusher is beautiful or not? Chat with the person next to you or tell me what you think and come back to me when you're done.

Today I am gonna be your user.

So I'm a mother in my 30s, just about, and this is what I said about the form.

I think it is beautiful and I love the futuristic design.

I enjoy the fact that not many people know what it is.

It's great for a guessing game with friends and visitors.

Did we agree? When evaluating products against form and function, you must keep referring back to size, user, safety or good design.

Pause your video, have a think and come back to me when you're ready.

Well done if you chose user.

We must always keep referring back to our user as quite often, these decisions are subjective and we need to know what our user thinks.

Is the garlic an example of good design? Remember, good design means that it combines both function and form.

Does the garlic crusher do this? Have a think.

Share your thoughts with a partner or with myself.

Pause the video and come back to me when you're ready.

Let's take a look at what Jun said.

He said, "I think that the successful features outweigh those that could be improved.

It achieves the main function of chopping of garlic with minimal effort, whilst in my eyes, being a beautiful product." Was your answer similar to Jun's or was your opinion different? You may need to evaluate products in both your NEA and your exam.

So as NEA and exam preparation, let's explore together a method for evaluating products when considering form and function.

Step one, it's good to identify who your primary user is, understanding their opinions and referring to them throughout.

If you can, pick up and test the product and get your user to test the product too.

We looked at different fruit juicers today.

If you have a whole range of products to look at, that would be even better.

Step two, based on these findings, analyse the product.

Consider the successful function features and those that could be improved.

And then consider the form successful form features and those that could be improved, just like what we did with the garlic crusher.

Step three, once you have considered the user's opinions, tested the product, and analysed the successful features, including those to be improved, you are ready to make an informed and justified decision.

Your decision as to whether the product is a good design is your evaluation.

Let's put what we have learned into practise.

You are gonna select one of these products and complete both tasks using your chosen product.

So the product on the left is a plastic water bottle with unicorns on it, and the product on the right is a metal water bottle with a little clip so that you can attach things to it.

You are gonna, number one, identify who are the intended users.

Step two, you're gonna analyse function and form.

And step three, you're going to evaluate and justify whether you think this product is an example of a good design or not.

If you get stuck, just flick back a few slides and you'll see the example method.

Well done for having a go.

Let's have a little look.

Your answers could include, for the unicorn water bottle, the users are likely to be a young child and a parent.

Now, it's likely to be the parent as well because although they might not be drinking from the bottle, they're the ones who are likely A, to buy it and B, to clean it and C, to refill it.

Successful function features.

For a small child, the straw makes it really easy to drink because you haven't gotta tip it up.

The lid flips down to stop leaks, which is not only beneficial for the child, but also for the parent.

There's nothing worse than finding a bag absolutely soaking wet because the drinker's leaked.

Function features that could be improved.

Now, the straws, they might be a positive for the small children, but for a parent, they're the nightmare.

That's where all the mould builds up in and you have to get one of those cleaners to go all the way down the straw, the straw cleaners, which is the right pain.

I prefer bottles without straws if I'm honest.

It could have a handle to carry or attach to a clip on a bag.

It doesn't have that at the minute, whereas the metal one did.

Lastly, it is made of polymers.

Now, obviously, this has a negative impact on the environment and it's very unlikely to be a renewable polymer because it is transparent.

Successful form features.

It's brightly coloured and a beautiful, beautiful pattern for a child.

It could easily be used to differentiate between different children at the party or a place of education.

My daughter has this bottle at her school and none of her friends have the same bottle, which is great for her to be able to easily identify it.

Form features that could be improved.

The pattern might not appeal to multiple children.

My son wouldn't like it if I sent this bottle with him unfortunately.

He prefers the metal one.

Part three, your answers could include, overall based on the successful features and those that could be improved of both form and function, I believe this to be a good design as it appeals to both young children and parents.

It doesn't just appeal to one of them, but manages to balance both of them.

You're obviously never gonna find the absolute perfect product and often, these things are a balance.

We've come to the end of our lesson today.

Well done with all of your hard work.

So let's summarise what we've learned.

Form and function can be useful ways to analyse and then to evaluate a product.

Some products focus more on form, whereas others focus more on function.

Remember that fashion bag? Users have personal opinions about both form and function and their opinion should always be taken into account when analysing on designing products.

And lastly, good design combines both form and function.

Thank you for joining me for your lesson today.

Have a lovely rest of your day and hope to see you soon.