Explore Design: Stakeholder-centred design; Commercial design influences. Read the actual course outline before choosing.
Confirm your cohort: Design 2025 v1.3. Check the implementation statement and school availability for your cohort.
What will I learn?
Unit 1: Stakeholder-centred design
Units 1 and 2Unit 2: Commercial design influences
Units 1 and 2Unit 3: Human-centred design
Units 3 and 4Unit 4: Sustainable design influences
Units 3 and 4How will I be assessed?
School arrangements: The published weighted assessments below apply to Units 3 and 4. Schools design the Units 1 and 2 assessment and set local task dates.
1 more sources
Published course / existing guide: Internal assessment 1: Design challenge (20%)
Published course / existing guide: Internal assessment 2: Project (30%)
Published course / existing guide: Internal assessment 3: Project (25%)
Published course / existing guide: External assessment: Examination — extended response (25%)
Progression and companion subjects
No complete companion or exclusion review is attached to this profile. Check the official course-entry conditions, language eligibility and your school’s sequence before enrolling. Links between resource hubs show related learning; they do not establish a compulsory prerequisite.
Will I find it hard?
Difficulty depends on your experience, interests, teaching and assessment. These are our reflection prompts, not an official difficulty rating.
- Do you enjoy designing, testing and improving a solution over several attempts?
- Look at the tools and techniques in the course outline. Ask your school which equipment and projects it uses.
Does it scale up or down?
Design, 2025. Table 6 of QTAC’s 2025 report publishes separate raw and scaled subject medians for General subjects with at least 50 students. Historical cohort data cannot predict your result or a future scaling direction.
| Median raw result | Median scaled result |
|---|---|
| 72 | 63.28 |
Scaling is not a measure of difficulty or a guaranteed bonus. Prioritise content you can engage with and required subjects for courses you are considering.
Try a little of the subject
Designing for others
Design is a purposeful, documented process for responding to the needs and wants of other people. In Unit 1 you work as a stakeholder-centred designer: you start with the people affected by a problem, not with a favourite product idea. The profession is broad. Architects plan and design buildings; landscape architects plan outdoor places such as parks, streetscapes and school grounds; interior designers shape rooms for use, comfort and atmosphere; industrial designers develop manufactured products such as furniture, tools and appliances; fashion designers create garments, footwear and accessories; graphic designers communicate messages with type, image and layout in posters, signage, logos and packaging; and digital media designers create screen-based experiences such as apps, websites, games and motion graphics. The professions differ in scale, materials, regulations and timeframes, but all of them explore a problem before developing a response, and many projects bring several professions together. Design problems also differ. A tame (simple) problem can be clearly defined and has a predictable kind of outcome, such as a label system for classroom storage tubs. A wicked (complex) problem cannot be fully defined, involves stakeholders whose needs conflict, and has outcomes that are hard to predict. Reducing social isolation among older residents of a suburb is wicked: every response changes the situation, and no single answer is clearly right. Recognising the type of problem tells you how much exploring you must do before you can write a design problem. The syllabus design process is a version of the Double Diamond (Design Council 2015). It has two phases, and each phase moves from divergent thinking (opening up many possibilities) to convergent thinking (narrowing to t
Original practice question: Which design situation is the best example of a wicked problem?
Show the worked answer
B
This is ATARMAxxing’s original sample learning material. It is not an official assessment task or a prediction of your school’s workload.
Explore the resources
Open the Design subject hub and free preview
Core subject information and planning are free. Full study resources are optional.
Sources, versions and verification dates
Profile source metadata last checked: 2026-11-13. A source check is not an endorsement by the authority or confirmation that a future course version is unchanged.
- QCAA Design General senior syllabus subject page — QCAA; 2026-11-11. Published version Live page not readable on 11 November 2026 (Cloudflare challenge, HTTP 403). Wayback Machine capture of 19 April 2026 lists 'Design General senior syllabus 2025 ... For implementation with students who will complete their study of the course in 2026 or beyond' and links Design 2025 v1.3. Confirm applicability to your cohort.
- Design 2025 v1.3 General senior syllabus — QCAA; 2026-11-11. Published version 2025 v1.3, dated January 2026 (version history: v1.3 = file metadata changes only). Official PDF read from the Wayback Machine capture of 6 October 2026 because the QCAA site returned a Cloudflare challenge; Course overview, procedural knowledge, reporting and Units 1 and 2 (syllabus pages 2-21 of 47) used for Year 11. Confirm applicability to your cohort.
- QCAA memo 003/26 — QCAA; 2026-11-11. Published version Memo 003/26, 20 January 2026 (Release of 2025 subject reports): states that the 2025 syllabuses for General subjects are being implemented with students who will complete their study in 2026 or beyond. Confirm applicability to your cohort.
- ATARMAxxing QCAA Design 2025 v1.3 General Senior Syllabus (Units 3 and 4 from the 2026 external assessment cohort; the 2019 v1.2 syllabus was examined 2020 to 2025) guide — ATARMAxxing; 2026-08-19. Original existing study guide, not an independent official verification or a forecast of a future syllabus.
- QTAC 2025 scaling report: Design — QTAC; 2026-11-12. Table 6 of QTAC’s 2025 report publishes separate raw and scaled subject medians for General subjects with at least 50 students.
- Design: QCAA course and implementation — QCAA; 2026-11-13. "Design General senior syllabus 2025" [level=3] For implementation with students who will complete their study of the course in 2026 or beyond.
- Design 2025 v1.3: published learning/assessment labels — QCAA; 2026-11-13. Primary PDF edition matches the edition advertised on the live course page. Factual contents labels; school delivery, task dates and results are separate. © State of Queensland (QCAA), CC BY 4.0; see the document copyright notice.
- QTAC 2025 scaling report: Design — QTAC; 2026-11-12. Table 6 of QTAC’s 2025 report publishes separate raw and scaled subject medians for General subjects with at least 50 students.