Design and Decision Criteria

Section 3.4.4

Design and Decision Criteria

Include design and decision criteria in feasibility reports, recommendation reports, proposals,and other documents that are concerned with the possible design of a product or, in some cases, afuture course of action.

Design criteria are the explicit goals that a project must achieve in order to be successful. In recommendation and feasibility reports,especially, the design and decision criteria determine the document's final recommendation for action. Managers use these criteria as their basic tool in evaluating a project'spotential for success and how well it fits into the goals of the organization. Experts need explicit design and decision criteria in order to evaluaterecommended designs of devices and test procedures.

Design criteria can be divided into primary and secondary criteria. Primary criteria are those thatconstitute a successful project; the project will be unsuccessful if it does not meet these goals. Secondary criteria are those features that are highly desirable but not absolutely essential. Separating primary and secondary criteria establishes a clear hierarchy in design choices. Often,implementing one criterion makes the implementation of another infeasible or costly, or a secondarycriterion may be sacrificed in favor of a primary criterion.

Make your design criteria short but as specific as possible. Avoid vaguelanguage. List your primary criteria first; then list the secondary criteria. Often design criteriaare best displayed in bulleted lists, with short titles preceding theexplanation. These titles may then be used later in the document to refer to the specific criteriabeing discussed. If you number your criteria, avoid referring to them later solely by number, apractice that often confuses readers. Use tables to show andsummarize the relative effectiveness of different implementations in comparison with your designcriteria.

4.0 Design Criteria
The online shopping system must possess the following features:
           Real time transactions of food, books and notes.  The system will enable               real-time purchases of meals through university ID cards, textbooks and               supplies either through ID cards or through the campus network, and purchase and               delivery of online course notes through the campus network.
        
   Real-time debiting and crediting of accounts.  At the time of purchase, the system               will debit the user's account for the amount of the sale and credit the appropriate               vendor's account.
        
   Authentication of user and server.  The system server will always authenticate both               the user to the server and the server to the user.
        
   Data security.  All sensitive data must be encrypted before being passed between the               client and server; no sensitive data will be sent through the network in clear               text.
In addition, the system should, if possible, possess the following additional features:
           Compatibility with existing browsers.  Users should be able to access the system using               any commonly available network browser.
        
   Direct inventory interfaces.  The system should be able to interface directly with the               various inventory systems of the vendors to allow real-time authentication that the               item is in stock and, when the transaction is completed, removal of the item from               vendor's current inventory.

In the foregoing example, the first primary criteron describes the essential operation of the system. The second, third, and fourth primary criteria list features that are necessary for the system tooperate successfully. Two secondary criteria are then listed as desirable additional features.

## Design and Decision Criteria ##

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