Design Brief: Recap


Given Brief:

You work for a company that design and develop software to help its customers. One client needs you to create a ‘number game’ prototype that uses basic Artificial Intelligence (AI) to guess a number that the user is thinking of. This prototype program will then be used as an educational tool to help to describe how AI can interact with its human users.


Discuss Kōrero Mai: how can you refine a design brief?

Read through your design brief and attributes/specification for the Number Guessing project.

Check out your algorithm for your program.

Does the project still meet the requirements of the design brief so far? how? why?

If not, why not? What do you need to do to improve it?



Refine your brief

Once you have re-read and checked your work do you need to change anything?

  • Does the product still meet the need so far?
  • Do you need to alter the algorithm?
  • Do you need to refine the brief to make it more accurate?
  • Do you need to modify any attributes?
  • Do you need to add any specification points?

Review and check your design brief and algorithm BEFORE moving onto the next stage.



Number Guesser Project

Planning your A.I

One of the first steps in planning your project should be to outline how your A.I will work.

  • What is the problem it is trying to solve?
  • What input does it have and receive?
  • How can it make smarter decisions with this input?
  • How do you store this information that it’s gathered?

Answering each of these questions will help you create the outline of your A.I.


Pen and Paper test

Another great approach to solving any problem is to write it out with a pen & paper (or anything equivalent).

Writing out the process of how the program will work will give you a better idea of the instructions your program will need to follow.



Peer Programming

Peer programming is the process of working together when programming. This allows a second pair of eyes to watch the code and point out any potential issues or bugs.

Peer programming can also be done verbally! Try having one person be the User, and another person being the Computer (A.I). Try simulate the number guessing project.

  • How does the User act?
    • What information do they give?
  • How does the Computer act?
    • How do they use the given information?




Ready? Kua reri? - Ready? It's your turn... Continuing your project

Access the projects page by clicking here . Alternatively, select the project from the top of the module outline page.

Think about what you've just learned. How both the User and the Computer should act.

Can you translate that into pseudocode or a flowchart?