<aside> 🗺️ Design Criteria are a description of how the world should look if a successful solution to your defined problem were developed and implemented.
</aside>
<aside> 🤔 Let’s start with a thought experiment...
<aside> 💭 Imagine the following scenario:
In that scenario, for your Design Brief to be effective, it would need to clearly establish two things:
You already have the resource for Crafting a Strong Problem Statement which addresses #1. Your Design Criteria are the key to addressing #2.
In that above scenario, you want to ensure that the hundreds of people/teams you are mobilising are all exploring different possible solutions to your defined problem. Otherwise you’ll just get hundreds of slightly different versions of the same idea.
To achieve that outcome, you need to make sure that the criteria should not overly constrain the potential solution space! While you do want your Design Criteria to be specific enough to enable you to judge whether a proposed solution would effectively address the problem, you do not want to write them so narrowly that there is only one (or possibly even zero) potential solution.
This is the scenario we want you to imagine when you write your Design Brief → because it will help you write it most effectively!
This scenario is not precisely the one you are facing in this bootcamp. In the second half, you will be developing a solution to the Design Brief you have written; not handing it to others to solve.
That said, imagining this scenario can put you in the perfect mindset for preparing an effective Design Brief. In particular, starting with the expectation that other people have to be able to (a) clearly understand the problem and target desired outcomes while (b) not feeling overly constrained in the solution space they can pursue sets you up perfectly for writing the most effective Design Brief.
It is worth noting that the above scenario is also very common in real world contexts; something that is illustrated both by the following example, and by the “Why does all this matter?” section at the bottom of this resource.
<aside> 💡 If you’re interested in seeing a real-world – and high stakes – version of this scenario currently playing out, then please take a look at the Rules & Guidelines documents for the ongoing $100M XPRIZE for Carbon Removal.
While these XPRIZE documents do not follow the compact Design Brief structure we use in this bootcamp, you will find that all the same elements – Problem Statement; Key Stakeholders; and Design Criteria – in comprehensive detail throughout those documents.
Of direct relevance here, you can see a range of examples of quantitatively measurable and qualitatively evaluable Design Criteria across those documents.
For context, the large team of authors who created these documents did so over several years of highly iterative consultations with hundreds of collaborating stakeholders and experts! In this bootcamp we’re running a much smaller and shorter version of the process – but the foundational framework is very similar!
</aside>
</aside>
<aside> 🗺️ Two “Guiding Principles” for effective Design Criteria
<aside> 1️⃣ Effective Design Criteria must be independent of any idea for solution!
As the above thought experiment shows, effective Design Criteria need to leave room for a wide range of creative solutions to be considered. If they bake in a specific solution, then they reduce potential for creative new solutions.
</aside>
<aside> 2️⃣ Effective Design Criteria must be analytically rigorous!
As detailed below in this resource, effective Design Criteria can be used to measure proposed solutions in analytically rigorous ways. Whenever possible, that means each criterion should include quantitative or semi-quantitative targets or metrics; though for some social criterion, clearly defined qualitative metrics are also acceptable.
</aside>
</aside>
<aside> 🤔 A simple analogy for Design Criteria
If the above scenario didn’t help you understand Design Criteria, try this analogy…
Think about it like travelling somewhere. The destination is the outcome you are seeking at the end of your journey... but a description of the destination is not a description of the journey itself. Specifically, it does not include any description of the route to getting there, or even the mode of transportation for getting there.
There are always many different paths that can lead, more or less directly, to every destination. Depending on the path you take, you can also travel on your journey to that destination by different modes of transport; for instance walking🚶🏽, bus 🚍,, train 🚂,, bike 🚲 , or even (for those tech enthusiasts) eventually hyperloop 🚄 !!!
By being very specific about a destination, while avoiding any prescription about the path or mode of travel for getting there, you leave the most creative space opportunity for any potential traveller to that destination to design their own journey to the end point you have set.
Translating this into the language of Design Criteria:
By being very specific about the positive outcomes that should be achieved if the problem is solved (the ‘destination’) while not constraining potential solutions (the ‘path and mode of travel’ for getting to the destination), you can create the greatest opportunity for creative solutions to be developed in response to your Design Brief!
</aside>
<aside> 🪜 Developing Design Criteria from your Key Stakeholders
<aside> ℹ️ The Sustainability Pillars includes guidance for developing draft Design Criteria using the framework of the three pillars (economic, social and environmental) of sustainability. This section provides a complementary approach based on the important stakeholders for your problem.
</aside>
Who would be better off if your defined problem were solved? How would they be better off?
One way to start developing your Design Criteria is to ask a few key questions that focus on some of your important stakeholders?
Let’s take an example where the chosen problem area is "reducing pollution being distributed by the irrigation systems used by local farmers" in a rural local context that is based in a low-income country. One of their Key Stakeholders is clearly the community of local farmers in the area.
In this case, one way to develop a clear design criterion is to research which pollutants the local farmers are (or perhaps should be) most concerned about, and to determine how much of a reduction in those pollutants the farmers feel (or that science says) is necessary to significantly reduce the impacts of those pollutants.
If the you were to determine that one of the major issues is lead and cadmium in the irrigation water, and that local crops are showing more than double what the World Health Organisation considers to be safe levels of those metals, then a clear, quantitative criterion would be:
A successful solution will reduce the amount of lead and cadmium measured in the local crops by at least 50%.
By providing a clear quantitative target – a 50% reduction in two specific heavy metals – this criterion provides a clear goal that any potential solution would have to meet. At the same time, this criterion does not constrain the type of solution that could be deployed to achieve this target.
Of course, this is only one criterion. For example, given the low-income nature of the local context, another criterion could be related to the deployment cost per square kilometre of any solution. Only when a proposed solution can meet all of your Design Criteria together would it be considered a truly effective “solution” for the problem you have defined.
</aside>
<aside> 🗺️ The importance of having measurable criteria…
In the above example, any proposed solution could be quantitatively evaluated against whether it meets the specific, measurable targets included within the criteria. You can tell this because these criteria can be rephrased as clear questions to ask about any proposed solution:
Does the proposed solution achieve a 50% reduction in lead and cadmium measured in the local crops?
Does the cost of the proposed solution be less than the maximum deployment cost per square kilometre?
The most effective Design Criteria will always provide at least one – and sometimes more than one – target or metric that any proposed solution could be judged against. Of course, specific targets or metrics requires rigorous research, analysis and referencing!
<aside> ⚠️ Be sure all your targets are grounded in well-referenced research.
Your Design Criteria will be evaluated based on how well they are backed up with reliable data and information sources.
</aside>
</aside>
<aside> 🗺️ Quantitative versus Qualitative Design Criteria
For most environment, economic and technical Design Criteria, you should be able to identify one or more quantitative targets or metrics – even if they have large error bars associated with them (which is entirely okay → so long as you state those error bars!).
For social Design Criteria, however, it is often difficult to identify solid quantitative targets or metrics. For example, continuing with the example above, “local farmer acceptability” would likely be an important criteria for any solution to be successful; but how do you measure that?
While there certainly are rigorous social science methods for creating semi-quantitative measures of concepts such as local acceptability of a solution, for the purposes of this bootcamp you do not have to try to design a rigorous social science survey or interviews! It is sufficient for social criteria to state the qualitative requirement, without detailing how that would be measured. For example:
A successful solution will engage, empower and provide new economic opportunities for local farmers and/or other local community stakeholders.
While this is hard to measure in a quantitative fashion, it nonetheless provides sufficient detail for an evaluator to ask effective questions about how a proposed solution meets this criteria.
</aside>
<aside> 🗺️ Identifying and managing tensions and trade-offs
In an ideal world, all your Design Criteria will complement each other, creating a synergistic whole. In reality, however, you will very likely have to identify tensions and balance trade-offs between your criteria.
We all know that sometimes improving things for one group of stakeholders can make things harder for another group. Similarly, sometimes achieving certain technical goals sometimes costs more money than is available. In other words, there are trade-offs.
As you develop your set of Design Criteria, you are likely to find that some of them will be in tension with each other. That is not necessarily a problem; in fact, it is to be expected. The important question becomes: how do you deal with those tensions?
The short answer is that you identify them, discuss them, and make clear that there might not be a ‘perfect’ solution that meets all criteria 100% effectively. Rather, you can make clear that there is space for some potential solutions to prioritise technical efficiency over cost, or one group of stakeholders over another, or vice versa. So long as you identify and discuss those tensions in your Design Brief, then you (and anyone else you give your Design Brief to) can explore different creative ways of managing them in the solution development stage!
</aside>
<aside> 🗺️ Remember… iterate, iterate, iterate…
You won’t get all your Design Criteria “right” the first time you develop them. You need to leave room for exploration, research and learning. Your Design Criteria will be a work in progress throughout the bootcamp – just like your problem statement and understanding of the stakeholders!
Effectively tackling any complex societal challenge requires continuous, iterative learning… including continually revising your understanding of the problem you are trying to tackle, and what the possible solution space might be. Specifically, you can – and likely will – come back to modify your Design Criteria even as you develop and hone your solution in later steps. Defining the first version before ****your solution can actually help you explore a wider range of potential solutions to begin with, and pick the best idea to start within the next phase.
</aside>
<aside> 🤔 Why does all this matter?
Writing effective Design Briefs is one of the most important skills common to innovation leaders and managers across sectors and fields!
Individuals and teams are frequently handed targeted ‘problems to solve’ by leaders within or outside their organisations. The XPRIZE example included above is just one large and highly visible example.
In any of those situations, a clearly defined problem, complete with effectively written definition of what a successful solution would need to do (i.e. effective Design Criteria), can mobilise dozens to thousands of people and teams to brainstorm and develop potential solutions. Conversely, a poorly defined problem, without an effective definition of what success would look like, can lead to confusion and wasted resources.
This is why the ability to clearly define a problem, and to effectively communicate what a potential solution would need to look like – but in a way that does not constrain creative solutions – is a highly sought after management and leadership skill across industries and sectors!
</aside>
This website and its content are copyright of **How to Change the World** © How to Change the World (HtCtW Limited), 2026. All rights reserved.