Completing our Change calculator. Whats next?

At this stage we should be nearing the completion of our Change calculator project. Currently you have gone through the…

  • Planning stages
  • Debugging stages
  • Iterative stages

… of your project.

Can you think of any other stages that your project can go through?


Accessibility / Useability

One final stage that a product can go through is the Accessibility / Useability stage. How intuitive is your product to use?

Users of your product should be able to use it without any guidance from you. All necessary information should be displayed or taught to the user. Again, get someone to test your product and think of the questions below:

  • How quickly (if at all) did they understand how to use the product
  • Were they confused at any stage of using it?
  • Did they find the information easily displayed and understandable?



Continue working on your project

Finish off your Change Calculator project if you have not already. Take the answers you acquired front the previous test and make any necessary changes to your project.

This project is accessible from the Projects tab at the top of the website.

Alternatively, Click Here to access the page now.



Evaluation

Discuss Kōrero Mai: What is an evaluation?

An evaluation is the reviewing of work to try and improve the final outcome being created. In Technology, we use evaluation in different ways:
  • As part of the design process - during the researching, designing, stakeholder feedback, modelling, making, testing and trialling of an idea - the process you go through can be evaluated and the product as it is being developed.
  • for the final product - to check the final product fulfils the requirements of the need and design brief.


Why is evaluation important?

think about evaluation...

...why do you think it is important for designers to evaluate?


How can you evaluate?

Speech Evaluate - arotake


Once you have made your final prototype, you need to test and trial is to make sure it is working as you intended.

At this stage, it is useful to get the intended stakeholder to give you feedback on your final program:

  • What do they think about your product?
  • What works well? why?
  • Any areas that could be improved? why?

This will help you to complete a final evaluation.

As a designer/programmer, you need to check your final outcome too. Here are some suggested questions to help you:

  • How well does your final outcome work? why?
  • What was the need/design brief for this project? Does your outcome fulfil the brief? why?
  • What were the attributes needed for your outcome? Does the outcome fulfil all of the attributes or only some of them? how? why?
  • Is the product fit for purpose? why?
  • Can you think of any ways to improve the final product?

Hint: Use stakeholder feedback to help you to answer and review the evaluation questions.


Ready? Kua reri? - Ready? it's your turn... Final product evaluation

Time for you to complete your final product evaluation... Remember to:
  • test and trial first
  • get stakeholder feedback
  • look back at the original need and design brief
  • think carefully about how well the product meets the need
  • Explain and give reasons for your thoughts and ideas.


You can use images, sketches, photo's, video, screenshots, and text to help you to evaluate your final outcome.