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A design brief is a short statement that identifies what a designer plans to do, for whom, where it should be used and why they have decided to follow this route - for example, ‘to design a workspace for a teenager’s bedroom to encourage them to revise and help them to achieve top marks in their exams’.

A design specification is a list of criteria your product needs to address. Using the brief as a starting point for research, a specification can be written when more facts are known. Information needs to be found through research. The statements need to be technical, measurable and justified as this then allows them to be used to evaluate the success of the prototype as it is being designed, developed and manufactured through the iterative design process.

An example: ‘The product must fold away to fit in the cupboard underneath a bedside cabinet (540 mm × 400 mm × 450mm) so that it can be stored easily in the customer’s compact and cluttered room.’ This statement has been produced from research into the average dimensions of a bedside cabinet, it can be used to easily test the iterative prototypes, and it is justified, providing reasons about why it is important to the user.

Design specifications should consider:

• form - the way that something looks, also called aesthetics
• function - what the product will do
• user requirements - what the user needs from the product
• performance requirements
• material and component requirements - what the product should be made from and the components needed to ensure it functions correctly
• scale of production - how the product is to be manufactured
• cost - affordability, value and profit margins
• maintenance - how the product will be maintained to ensure continued use
• sustainability - minimising the impact on the environment