IB MYP Design – Criterion A – Inquiring and analysing Study Guide

This study guide teaches Criterion A – Inquiring and analysing for IB MYP Design. It is aligned to the International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Design, from 2014, and suits MYP years 4 and 5 (MYP has no SL/HL split). It applies to your school design projects and to the design ePortfolio submitted for MYP eAssessment.

MYP has no prescribed content list – schools design their own units. This page covers a skill that one of the brief’s four assessment criteria names. The brief describes Criterion A like this: you are given a design situation, you identify a problem that needs solving, you analyse the need for a solution, and you inquire into the nature of the problem. Your teacher will share the exact strand wording and the task-specific clarifications for each project.

Quick links: revision notes, practice questions, course hub, printable checklist.

What this unit covers

Skill	What you must be able to do	Level
Explaining and justifying the need	Name a client or target audience, state their problem, and back up why a solution is needed with evidence	MYP years 4-5
Planning research	Decide what you need to find out, sort it into primary and secondary research, and put it in priority order	MYP years 4-5
Analysing existing products	Study products that already try to solve the problem and draw out what could inspire your solution	MYP years 4-5
Writing a design brief	Summarise your analysis of the research in a short statement that sets the direction for Criterion B	MYP years 4-5

From the brief: the four assessment criteria are weighted equally, each with eight achievement levels (1-8) in four bands. The ePortfolio is a design project presented as a complete design folder containing a design brief and specification, marked by your teacher, with a sample from each school moderated by the IB. Your Criterion A brief is a required part of that folder.

1. From design situation to problem

A design situation is the starting scenario, for example “Volunteers at a community event struggle to organise equipment.” It is not yet a problem you can solve. Your first job is to narrow it to one problem faced by one client or target audience.

• Client: a specific person or organisation you design for and can talk to (a named coach, a club organiser).
• Target audience: the wider group who will use the solution (all volunteer coaches in a league, all visitors to an event).

You can have both. Name them precisely: “everyone” gives you nobody to research.

2. Explaining and justifying the need

Explaining the need says what the problem is, who has it and what happens because of it. Justifying the need gives reasons and evidence that a solution is worth making. Evidence turns an opinion into a justification.

A strong justification usually covers:

1. Who has the problem, described precisely.
2. What the problem is, and when and where it happens.
3. Evidence that it is real: observation, measurements, survey results, interview comments.
4. Consequences if nothing changes: time lost, risk of injury, people excluded, money wasted.
5. Gap: why existing solutions do not already solve it for this client.

Always give sample sizes with survey results. “75% of coaches” means little; “9 of the 12 coaches surveyed (75%)” tells the reader how much weight to give it.

3. Planning primary and secondary research

Primary research is information you collect yourself, first-hand, for this project. Secondary research is information someone else has already collected or published.

Primary research	Secondary research
Interview with the client	Books and articles on the topic
Questionnaire or survey of the target audience	Product reviews and retailer descriptions
Observation of the problem as it happens	Published data and measurements, e.g. body-size tables
Measuring or weighing things yourself	Guidance on safety or accessibility
Testing an existing product yourself	Existing websites or apps studied from their public pages

Research planning means deciding what you need to know before you decide how to find it out. Write research questions first, then choose a method for each. Put them in priority order: the questions whose answers would change your design most come first. For example, “What does the client need to carry?” outranks “What colours does the client like?”, because the first decides size and structure.

A good research plan is a table: research question, primary or secondary, method or source, and what it will decide. Judge secondary sources for reliability: who wrote it, when, and whether they are selling something.

4. Analysing existing products

Existing products show you what has already been tried. Analysis means more than describing them. For each product, say what it does well, what it does badly for your client, and what idea you could adapt.

A common prompt is ACCESS FM: aesthetics, cost, customer, environment, size, safety, function, materials. It is not an IB requirement; use only the headings that matter.

Finish with a short conclusion: which features inspire your solution, and which weaknesses it must avoid. Three products analysed in depth beat ten listed with a photo each.

5. Writing the design brief

The design brief summarises your analysis of the research. It is short, usually one paragraph or a few bullet headings, and it states:

• the client or target audience
• the problem and the evidence for the need
• the key findings from research and product analysis
• what the solution is intended to do (the design goal), and whether it will be a product, a digital solution or both
• known limits found so far, such as budget or where it will be used

The brief says what is needed and why. It does not list measurable requirements; that is the specification, which belongs to Criterion B.

Worked example 1: product design

Design situation: volunteers at a fictional after-school club, Riverside Juniors, find setting up sessions slow.

Step 1 – narrow to a problem and client. The client is Coach Daniel, who sets up alone. The target audience is volunteer coaches in the club’s league. The problem: carrying cones, balls, bibs and two pop-up goals from the car park to the pitch.

Step 2 – gather evidence. Over three sessions the student observed Coach Daniel. He made 3, 3 and 4 trips, and set-up took 12, 10 and 14 minutes: a mean of 12 minutes. The walk is 150 m (measured with a trundle wheel). The full kit weighed 9.6 kg on bathroom scales. A survey of 12 volunteer coaches found 9 of 12 (75%) make more than one trip, and 8 of 12 (67%) said they would use a single carrier.

Step 3 – justify the need.

Coach Daniel loses a mean of 12 minutes of each session to set-up because he cannot carry 9.6 kg of mixed kit in one trip over 150 m. This time comes out of the children’s playing time. The problem is not his alone: 9 of 12 coaches surveyed (75%) make more than one trip. Current bags hold balls or cones but not both with goals.

Step 4 – research plan (extract, in priority order).

Research question	Type	Method	Why it matters
What must be carried, and how big and heavy is it?	Primary	Measure and weigh each item	Sets capacity and strength
What surface is the route?	Primary	Observe and photograph the path	Decides wheels or no wheels
How do existing carriers perform?	Primary and secondary	Test a club bag; read product reviews	Shows features to adapt
How much can a coach comfortably lift?	Secondary	Published manual-handling guidance	Sets a safe load limit

Step 5 – analyse existing products. A mesh ball bag is light and cheap but holds nothing else. A folding cart carries the whole load but its small wheels stick on grass. A large holdall keeps bibs dry but is awkward at 9.6 kg. Conclusion: adapt the cart’s single-trip capacity, the mesh bag’s ventilation for wet balls, and avoid small wheels on grass.

Step 6 – design brief.

Design a product that lets Coach Daniel carry all Riverside Juniors session kit (9.6 kg: cones, balls, bibs and two pop-up goals) 150 m over a gravel path and grass in one trip. Observation showed set-up takes a mean of 12 minutes over three or four trips; 75% of coaches surveyed face the same problem. Existing bags each hold only part of the kit, and the folding cart tested sticks on grass. The solution should cut set-up time, keep wet and dry items apart, and be light enough to lift into a car.

Worked example 2: digital design

Design situation: a fictional volunteer group, Hillside Repair Café, fixes broken household items once a month. Visitors queue without knowing if a volunteer with the right skill is there.

Evidence. The organiser (the client) was interviewed. Waiting times for 10 visitors at one session were 35, 50, 20, 65, 40, 55, 30, 70, 45 and 40 minutes: mean 45 minutes, range 50 minutes. Of 28 items brought, 7 (25%) went home unrepaired because no volunteer with the right skill attended. A questionnaire of 40 visitors found 30 (75%) would book a slot online. 12 of the 40 (30%) were over 65, and 9 of those 12 used a smartphone.

Justification.

Visitors wait a mean of 45 minutes, and 25% of items at the session studied could not be repaired because skills and items were not matched in advance. A booking system that records the type of item would let the organiser invite the right volunteers. Demand exists: 30 of 40 visitors (75%) would book online.

Research plan (extract). Primary: interview the organiser about volunteer skills; observe one session; ask older visitors to try a booking page on their phones. Secondary: study the public pages of three existing booking tools; read accessibility guidance on text size and contrast.

Analysis of existing solutions. A general appointment-booking website is quick to use but cannot record what item is being brought. A shared spreadsheet with a sign-up form is free and records item type, but visitors cannot see which slots are left. A group messaging chat reaches regular visitors quickly but new visitors cannot find it and messages get lost. Conclusion: combine visible free slots with an item-type question, and keep the form short for phone users.

Design brief.

Create a digital booking solution for Hillside Repair Café so visitors can choose a time slot and say what item they are bringing. Evidence: a mean 45-minute wait and 25% of items unrepaired due to skill mismatch at the session studied; 75% of 40 visitors surveyed would book online. It must work on a smartphone and suit older visitors (30% of those surveyed were over 65), and let the organiser see bookings by item type.

Common errors

• Choosing the solution first. “I will make a phone app” in the opening line skips the inquiry. Criterion A ends with a brief, not a product idea.
• Justifying with general claims (“plastic is bad”, “apps are popular”) instead of evidence from the client’s own situation.
• Giving percentages without the sample size, or surveying friends who are not the target audience.
• A research plan that lists methods (“survey, internet”) with no research questions and no order of priority.
• Calling every web search “primary research”. If someone else published it, it is secondary.
• Describing existing products (colour, price, photo) without saying what each means for your design.
• Writing a brief that is really a specification, with measurements and tests. Keep those for Criterion B.

Where to go next

Next: the Criterion A revision notes, then the Criterion A practice questions. For the bigger picture, see the design cycle, the four criteria in practice, how MYP Design is assessed and ePortfolio preparation.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Design, from 2014 (published by the IB, 2015). The brief names Criterion A: Inquiring and analysing and states that the ePortfolio design folder contains a design brief and specification. All scenarios and data on this page are fictional.