IDEA9106 Design Thinking
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · S2 2026IDEA9106 Overview
- The University of Sydney
- Semester 2, 2026
- Postgraduate coursework
- 6 credit points
Within The University of Sydney, School of Architecture, Design and Planning — Design Lab, IDEA9106 takes a team of five through one full human-centred design cycle on a single semester-long brief — building empathy through interviews and observation, synthesising messy qualitative data into insights, reframing the problem space, generating and selecting concepts, building a lo-fi prototype, testing it on strangers, and evaluating it against a theory of change — while naming and requiring the vocabulary for every step (double diamond, wicked problems, how might we, personas, affinity diagrams, SUS, reflection-in-action).
- IDEA9106 grading 25% Prototype and User Testing Session (group, Week 10) · 20% A3 Context exploration and mapping (individual, Week 4, 7-10 pages / 1000-word report) · 20% Final Presentation (group, Week 12, 10 min + 5 min Q&A) · 15% Reflective Report (individual, Week 13, 1000-word visual report or 5-minute video) · 5% Team Agreement (group, Week 3) · 3+3+3% three peer-evaluation tasks · 2+2+2% three mindset tasks · 0% Progress Presentation (Week 8, unmarked but required). Group work totals 50%.
- IDEA9106 task mode No exam and no invigilated assessment of any kind — every task in the outline is a portfolio, creative work or experimental-design submission, and all twelve are marked AI allowed. The two moments that behave like an exam are live and in the tutorial room: the Week 10 Prototype and User Testing Session (25%, 2 hours, the full tutorial, tested on strangers at the user-testing fair) and the Week 12 Final Presentation (20%, 10 minutes plus 5 minutes Q&A).
- IDEA9106 mark trap The brief is written so the obvious answers are pre-failed, and marking follows the reasoning rather than the artefact: What is assessed is the quality of the reasoning connecting what you found to what you made. Three traps are stated outright. It moves. Where it moves to is your decision, and you should be able to defend it.
- IDEA9106 pass rule Attendance is the hurdle and it is unusually sharp: Students are required to meet the School of Architecture, Design and Plannings minimum attendance requirement of 90% of tutorials. That is, two unexplained absences. Late arrival/early departure will be deemed as an absence.
How IDEA9106 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| A1a. Mindset task 1 | 2% | Mandatory individual online task during the tutorial |
| A2a. Team Agreement | 5% | Mandatory group assignment using the supplied template |
| A3. Context exploration and mapping | 20% | Individual context-mapping assessment |
| A1b. Peer evaluation task 1 | 3% | Mandatory individual online task during the tutorial |
| A1c. Mindset task 2 | 2% | Mandatory individual online task during the tutorial |
| A1d. Peer evaluation task 2 | 3% | Mandatory individual online task during the tutorial |
| A2b. Progress Presentation | 0% · mandatory | Unmarked but required group progress presentation |
| A2c. Prototype and User Testing Session | 25% | Mandatory group user-testing session during the tutorial |
| A1e. Mindset task 3 | 2% | Mandatory individual online task during the tutorial |
| A1f. Peer evaluation task 3 | 3% | Mandatory individual online task during the tutorial |
| A2d. Final Presentation | 20% | Final project presentation |
| A1g. Reflective Report | 15% | Individual 1,000-word visual report or five-minute video |
| Tutorial Attendance · hurdle | hurdle | Minimum 90% attendance requirement |
The published weighted tasks total 100%. Assessment 2b carries 0% but is mandatory. The School requires at least 90% tutorial attendance; approved special-consideration cases may be offered an alternative assessment.
What IDEA9106 covers
The sequence opens at Assessment Journey and Attendance Requirement, develops its central analytical shift in Ideation and Concept Selection, and closes with Final Presentation and Reflective Practice.
Assessment Journey and Attendance Requirement
linked A1/A2/A3 tasks · mandatory progress · 90% attendance · map evidence from each studio activity into the later project deliverables02Design Thinking as an Iterative Practice
divergence and convergence · iteration · problem-solution coevolution · plan a cycle that learns before it commits to a solution03User Research and Context
research question · observation and interview · context mapping · collect and organise evidence about users, actors, environment and constraints04Ethics, Consent and Research Care
informed consent · privacy and data care · power and vulnerability · design a research interaction that minimises avoidable harm and records consent05Synthesis and Visual Representation
affinity mapping · pattern and outlier · visual hierarchy · move from raw observations to a traceable insight map06Ideation and Concept Selection
brainwriting and divergence · selection criteria · novelty and usefulness · generate alternatives individually and collectively before choosing a concept07Prototypes and Fidelity Decisions
prototype purpose · fidelity · assumption test · choose a prototype form based on the next question rather than visual polish08Usability Testing and Evidence
task scenario · observation · severity and iteration · run a test that records behaviour, friction and interpretation separately09Evaluation and Theory of Change
evaluation question · output and outcome · causal pathway · define what change should occur, for whom and what evidence would challenge the theory10Team Studio, Roles and Decision Records
team role · critique and psychological safety · decision log · make contributions and design decisions auditable across the semester11Final Presentation and Reflective Practice
design narrative · prototype evidence · critical reflection · present the chain from context to decision, test and revision, then identify a genuine limitationIt is Postgraduate coursework (Master's level, 9000-series), open to beginners: no prerequisites, no assumed knowledge.
It carries 6 credit points (roughly 120-150 hours total; the unit itself budgets 9-12 hours a week).
It is positioned as Foundational core unit in the Master of Interaction Design and Electronic Arts (MIDEA) program; its vocabulary is treated as assumed knowledge for later MIDEA and MDES units.
There is no exam and no written final: 100% is coursework and half of it (50%) is group work on one live brief.
In Semester 2 2026 that brief is 'In the Meantime' — waiting — and it comes with hard constraints that decide marks: you cannot add capacity, distraction alone is not a design response, you must name at least two stakeholder groups, and your prototype must be testable by a stranger at the mid-semester user-testing fair.
It is a studio unit run on a lecture dependency — 'most of the foundational content for this unit is ONLY delivered in lectures. Tutorials do not repeat lecture material' — and attendance is the real hurdle.
Six small mindset and peer-evaluation tasks (15% combined) generate the raw data you must later reflect on in the 15% Reflective Report, so skipping them costs twice.
Assessment in IDEA9106 is distributed as follows: 25% Prototype and User Testing Session (group, Week 10) · 20% A3 Context exploration and mapping (individual, Week 4, 7-10 pages / 1000-word report) · 20% Final Presentation (group, Week 12, 10 min + 5 min Q&A) · 15% Reflective Report (individual, Week 13, 1000-word visual report or 5-minute video) · 5% Team Agreement (group, Week 3) · 3+3+3% three peer-evaluation tasks · 2+2+2% three mindset tasks · 0% Progress Presentation (Week 8, unmarked but required).
Group work totals 50%.
The operational assessment conditions matter here. No exam and no invigilated assessment of any kind — every task in the outline is a portfolio, creative work or experimental-design submission, and all twelve are marked AI allowed.
The two moments that behave like an exam are live and in the tutorial room: the Week 10 Prototype and User Testing Session (25%, 2 hours, the full tutorial, tested on strangers at the user-testing fair) and the Week 12 Final Presentation (20%, 10 minutes plus 5 minutes Q&A).
What makes IDEA9106 demanding is concrete: The brief is written so the obvious answers are pre-failed, and marking follows the reasoning rather than the artefact: What is assessed is the quality of the reasoning connecting what you found to what you made.
Three traps are stated outright. It moves. Where it moves to is your decision, and you should be able to defend it.
Attendance is the hurdle and it is unusually sharp: Students are required to meet the School of Architecture, Design and Plannings minimum attendance requirement of 90% of tutorials. That is, two unexplained absences.
Late arrival/early departure will be deemed as an absence.
For enrolment planning, None. Corequisites: none. Prohibitions: none. Assumed knowledge: none.
The sequence opens at Assessment Journey and Attendance Requirement, develops its central analytical shift in Ideation and Concept Selection, and closes with Final Presentation and Reflective Practice.
Worked example: Design Thinking integrated response
- 1Mark the starting condition or object represented by linked A1/A2/A3 tasks.
- 1Write the change, rule or mechanism supplied by brainwriting and divergence as a verb-led link.
- 1Show how that link reaches research question; do not skip an intermediate actor, quantity or stage.
- 1Answer the task with the completed chain and preserve this limit: A participant statement should not be generalised beyond the recruitment and setting.
Key terms
- double diamond and the reframed double diamond (discover, define, develop, deliver)
- The Double Diamond is a design-process model that alternates divergent and convergent work across Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver; reframed versions make iteration and repeated problem framing explicit.
- wicked problems vs tame problems
- A tame problem has a stable formulation and evaluable solution, whereas a wicked problem is contested, interconnected and changed by attempts to address it.
- reframing / reframe the problem space / reframed project brief
- Reframing changes the assumptions, boundaries or point of view used to define a problem, producing a revised brief that opens different design possibilities.
- how might we (HMW)
- A How Might We question converts a research insight into an open design challenge broad enough for alternatives but specific enough to guide ideation.
- semi-structured interview, pilot interview and guerilla interviews
- A semi-structured interview follows planned topics while allowing probes; a pilot tests the guide before fieldwork, and guerilla interviews recruit quickly in context for rapid exploratory evidence.
- affinity diagrams and synthesis
- An affinity diagram clusters observations or quotations by meaningful similarity, and synthesis interprets those patterns and outliers to produce defensible insights.
- lo-fi prototype and design fixation
- A low-fidelity prototype is a fast, inexpensive representation used for early learning; design fixation is the tendency to remain anchored to an existing idea or feature despite contrary evidence.
- usability testing and the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire
- Usability testing observes representative users attempting defined tasks, while SUS is a standard ten-item questionnaire that converts perceived usability responses into a 0–100 score.
IDEA9106 FAQ
Is IDEA9106 hard?
The brief is written so the obvious answers are pre-failed, and marking follows the reasoning rather than the artefact: What is assessed is the quality of the reasoning connecting what you found to what you made. Three traps are stated outright. It moves. Where it moves to is your decision, and you should be able to defend it.
How is IDEA9106 assessed?
25% Prototype and User Testing Session (group, Week 10) · 20% A3 Context exploration and mapping (individual, Week 4, 7-10 pages / 1000-word report) · 20% Final Presentation (group, Week 12, 10 min + 5 min Q&A) · 15% Reflective Report (individual, Week 13, 1000-word visual report or 5-minute video) · 5% Team Agreement (group, Week 3) · 3+3+3% three peer-evaluation tasks · 2+2+2% three mindset tasks · 0% Progress Presentation (Week 8, unmarked but required).
Group work totals 50%.
What is the IDEA9106 exam or final-task format?
No exam and no invigilated assessment of any kind — every task in the outline is a portfolio, creative work or experimental-design submission, and all twelve are marked AI allowed.
The two moments that behave like an exam are live and in the tutorial room: the Week 10 Prototype and User Testing Session (25%, 2 hours, the full tutorial, tested on strangers at the user-testing fair) and the Week 12 Final Presentation (20%, 10 minutes plus 5 minutes Q&A).
Does IDEA9106 have a hurdle or component-level pass rule?
Attendance is the hurdle and it is unusually sharp: Students are required to meet the School of Architecture, Design and Plannings minimum attendance requirement of 90% of tutorials. That is, two unexplained absences. Late arrival/early departure will be deemed as an absence.
What prerequisites or restrictions apply to IDEA9106?
None. Corequisites: none. Prohibitions: none.
Is IDEA9106 offered in Semester 2, 2026?
This resource is aligned to Semester 2, 2026. Confirm your class and assessment timetable in the current institutional system.
Is this IDEA9106 resource an official university guide?
No. It is an independent IDEA9106 study resource; current institutional instructions remain authoritative for assessment operation.
How to prepare for the assessments
Retrieve the unit map, practise the recurring method—move iteratively from ethical user research and context mapping through ideation, prototyping, usability testing and evidence-led evaluation—on changed scenarios, and verify every operational assessment detail in the live institutional system.
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