Course: Graduation Project CMD credits: 30

During the final stage of their degree, students will learn how to delineate and execute a complex design assignment, based on a social issue or on an opportunity presented by the market. Their assignment will be commissioned by a company, organisation or knowledge institution.
During the various stages of the graduation project, students must demonstrate that they are able to design, substantiate and reflect on the entire design and thinking process independently. In other words, students must be able to indicate how and why they arrived at certain design decisions, on which sources they based their designs and how this fact is reflected in an interactive digital prototype that will be assessed.
The graduation programme in Year 4 features several components which students must go through, elaborate and submit in the order described below. Together, these components make up the CMD graduation project portfolio:
 

• Problem Analysis & Design Guidelines

The design process starts with an effort to explore the practical problem (or challenge). You will take stock of the ‘problem’ and assess its causes, context as well as the needs of stakeholders and users. This process will result in a problem definition with clearly defined research questions.
You will also take stock of the research area by speaking with relevant people (experts, stakeholders and users) as well as studying literature and other relevant documents. The exploration should help you to find out how others view the problem and have dealt with similar situations. In other words, you will seek out theoretical knowledge and experiences which are relevant to your research as well as which reflect the key aspects of your problem definition and research questions. This theoretical framework will allow you to present key concepts, theories, models and relevant work by other researchers and designers; the emphasis will be on design patterns and best practices.
You can then derive relevant design guidelines and principles from this information. This phase also offers an opportunity to determine how the design can be specifically oriented towards the creation of added value for users, in areas such as behavioural modification, well-being, education, and so on.
In addition to a better understanding of the problem, this phase will also yield insight into the design conditions that frame and guide the design assignment.
 

• Design Document

The Design Document describes the process of generating an initial idea, elaborating this idea into design specifications and developing an initial concept or mock-up.
This process consists of several steps:
You start by exploring possible solutions through divergent thought processes and development of the broadest possible range of ideas. You then critically assess these ideas, which you weigh up on the basis of various criteria and the design conditions formulated in the initial phase.
Next, you make a more critical selection for the so-called mapping process, which involves more in-depth reassessment of your ideas, followed by elaboration and refinement.
Once you have chosen one or more solutions, you will formulate the characteristics of your desired product (the Design Proposition). Further refinement and elaboration of all the aforementioned requirements will yield the design specifications and an initial conceptualisation, which could include personas, user scenarios, task scenarios, task analyses, click flow diagrams, site structure diagrams, colour pallets, mood boards, story boards, mock-ups, lo-fi and hi-fi wireframes, and so on.
 

• Prototype & Process Description

You will now develop a prototype on the basis of the design specifications in the Design Document. Prototyping is an effective method of visualising your idea, obtaining feedback and testing the product. This stage is where you should evaluate the prototype in a rapid and iterative manner.
Your prototype must be a practical and functional representation that demonstrates the user's interaction with the intended end product.
The prototype does not have to be elaborated to the extent that it can be used in practice; the emphasis will be on providing a clear idea of the end product.
If the visual aspects are important, your visual design will have to meet more stringent requirements.
However, the prototype may also be elaborated to the point where it could be implemented almost immediately. In this case, the emphasis will be on its technical elaboration.
If the emphasis is on its technical elaboration, your interaction design will have to meet more stringent requirements.

The document prepared during this phase should be a clear representation (in words and images) of the prototype and a justification of the choices made during the development process; the emphasis will be on further elaboration of the design specifications and the rationale for your choices in terms of technology or tools.
You will also need to create a digital representation of the prototype, which could take the form of a functioning standalone product or video recording, included as a digital appendix to the portfolio.
 

• Testing and Evaluating

This phase will see you prepare a testing plan, test the product, critically analyse the results and draw conclusions.
You will evaluate the prototype and expected characteristics on the basis of the Design Document prepared during the second phase. This process will involve demonstrating that the design conditions have been effectively implemented in the digital prototype and proving that the prototype can solve or alleviate the problem.
As previously mentioned, thorough empirical research will be carried out during this phase.
You will describe this process in your evaluation report, which will be the second-to-last component of your graduation project portfolio.
 
 

• Critical Reflection

The critical reflection is a review of the design process and research. This reflection will enable you to apply effective results and avoid pitfalls that you have encountered in a subsequent research project.
See below for example questions that you may wish to include in your critical reflection.
1. A reflection on the theoretical aspects: To what extent was the theoretical basis useful during your research? Which insights proved to be the most useful? Did the theoretical framework offer sufficient guidance during your research? Were you able to successfully define and research the key concepts from the problem definition and sub-questions derived from the relevant literature sources? Should you have conducted more or less literature study?
2. A reflection on the design conditions and specifications: To what extent did they prove to be suitable and serve their purpose: solving the problem at hand?
3. A reflection on the prototyping process: which choices did you make and why? This component will extend to aspects such as the techniques and methods that you decided to use, the technologies crucial to your prototype, or your capacity of adapting to newly gained insights over the course of the process.
4. A reflection on your evaluation strategy and research methods of choice: Did you use the appropriate data collection methods to resolve the problem and underlying research questions? Were any more effective alternative method available? Did you have trouble accessing the target group and did the target group cooperate? How did you approach the target group and did this method yield the desired response? Which problem areas did you encounter during the data collection process? What measures could you have taken to increase the reliability of the research results?
5. A reflection on the research outcomes: Do the research outcomes offer sufficient insights? Were the results surprising or did they match your expectations? Did you optimally apply the theoretical knowledge and research methods? To what extent do the results of the evaluation phase match the design conditions that you formulated in advance?
6. A reflection on the overall design process: Did you go through all the appropriate steps during the process? Which problem areas did you encounter during the various phases of the design process? How could the product be improved in order to address the formulated problem more effectively? How should the product be applied in order to resolve the problem in its real-world context?
This document, the Critical Reflection, constitutes the final part of your graduation portfolio.
 

• Defence

The defence (which will take the form of a presentation) offers an opportunity of demonstrating to your 'conversation partners' (the graduation project supervisor and the second assessor) that your prototype effectively resolves the problem as well as that it accurately reflects the context, purpose and target group. You must use this opportunity to convince them that you completed all the stages of the design process with the required professionalism. Design processes seldom (if ever) go entirely according to plan, so you will be expected to demonstrate how your insights have evolved over the course of the process.
The final project presentation will last 15 minutes and will be followed by a 15-minute question round, in which you will defend your design and demonstrate that you have sufficient knowledge of the field.