QCE Design past exams 2020–2025, by year and topic

The rest of the syllabus

Question-level mapping for these areas is still being verified. Every official paper covering them is in the year table above.

• Unit 1: Stakeholder-centred design — Topic 1: Designing for others · The design profession and models of the design process (double diamond, Design Thinking for Educators, Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, Stanford d.school, Design Minds) · Balancing competing aesthetic, cultural, economic, social and technical features · Simple ('tame') vs complex ('wicked') design problems · Stakeholders, needs/wants and defining design problems and constraints · Design criteria and the principles of good design (innovative, useful, aesthetic, accessible, sustainable) · Influential design styles and designers of the past (Art Deco, Bauhaus, Brutalism, Memphis, Minimalism, Modernism, Postmodernism) · Elements and principles of design (space, line, colour, shape, texture, tone, form, proportion, scale; balance, contrast, proximity, harmony, alignment, repetition, hierarchy) · Ideation sketching, schematic sketching and low-fidelity prototyping
• Unit 2: Commercial design influences — Topic 1: Responding to needs and wants · The role of the client in commercial design · Economic, social and cultural influences on commercial design · Collaborative design approaches · Defining commercial design problems and design criteria · Devising and refining ideas using divergent and convergent thinking · Communicating design concepts to a commercial/client audience
• Unit 3: Human-centred design — Topic 1: Designing with empathy · Human attitudes, expectations, motivations and experiences (four-pleasure framework; attract/converse/transact framework) · Ergonomics and anthropometric data (clearance, reach, adjustability, percentiles) · Designing-with-empathy techniques (observations, interviews, experiences) and empathy maps · Defining HCD problems and design criteria from stakeholder requirements · Devising ideas using divergent thinking, sketching and low-fidelity prototyping · Evaluating and refining ideas using convergent thinking and stakeholder feedback · Proposing and communicating HCD design concepts to stakeholders
• Unit 4: Sustainable design influences — Topic 1: Responding to opportunities · Identifying design opportunities (gap in market, new market, improving wellbeing) · Economic, social and ecological sustainability · Design life cycle (launch, growth, maturity, decline) and linear vs circular design · Circular design strategies (product as a service, product life extension, closed loop/take back, modularity) · Planned obsolescence and how design decisions encourage/discourage it · Defining sustainable design problems, stakeholders, constraints and design criteria · Devising, refining and communicating sustainable design concepts