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Design Project (H6052)

60 credits, Level 6

Autumn and spring teaching

The final year design project is where you apply your accumulated knowledge and design skills to a more substantial project of your choice. The projects are designed to give you a taste of real-life design practice in which you must develop your skills in product design and realization, and interact with skilled people across a range of specialisms. The work must be completed by an agreed deadline, and then presented to an audience not necessarily familiar with the work you have done.

Projects are designed to expose you to issues of project management, resourcing, planning, scheduling, marketing, documentation and communication. This will involve you managing the process of design and may involve activities such as: observation, user research, design probes, specification, sketching/sketch modelling, concept development, prototyping, product refinement, user interaction and producing the relevant presentation material. A good project will demand creative thinking, analysis and implementation.

The project will involve you as an individual working two-days-per-week on a particular area of activity relevant to your major, with the goal of meeting a specific set of objectives. There will be two interim presentations for critique each term and at the end of the second term, you produce a Technical Report and a Portfolio and give a 20-minute presentation. In addition you are required to display and present your work at the Design Show. A single member of faculty will supervise your project; a second (minor) supervisor is also assigned to provide occasional guidance and to give an independent assessment of the completed report and portfolio. The specific objectives will depend on the nature of the project. It is anticipated that you will have developed a substantial piece of work for inclusion in your portfolio.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 600 hours of work. This breaks down into about 176 hours of contact time and about 424 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.