# Exact Queensland source and taught limits

**Official source:** [QCAA Design General senior syllabus 2025 v1.3, January 2026](https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/senior-qce/syllabuses/snr_design_25_syll.pdf). The [QCAA subject landing](https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/senior/senior-subjects/syllabuses/technologies/design) lists v1.3 for students completing in 2026 or beyond and was last updated 15 June 2026. Both were checked **29 September 2026**. Page numbers below are **printed syllabus pages**, not PDF viewer indices. No Australian Curriculum P–10 code is invented for this senior subject.

| Official location and wording focus | Where this pack begins | Limit still to teach or verify locally |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Printed pp.7–8: QCAA design process has **Explore** and **Develop** phases, each with divergent/convergent thinking; procedural knowledge and representation are integrated across units | A source→problem→ideas→revision rehearsal appears in the four original aids and daily scripts | This organiser is not QCAA's diagram or a substitute for comparing the separately named third-party models. Its fictional problem does not satisfy a real-world stakeholder brief. |
| Printed p.13, **Unit 1: Stakeholder-centred design**: purposeful documented response to stakeholder needs/wants, explore and develop phases; objectives 1–7 | Evidence logs, problem/criteria statements, varied initial ideas, one low-fidelity revision | This 250-minute slice does not deliver every objective at assessed depth or the notional **55-hour** unit. |
| Printed p.14, **Topic 1: Designing for others**: breadth of design professions and scope | Day 1 connects generic professional roles to imagined outputs | Named designers, genuine professional exemplars and broader research still required. |
| Printed p.14: use and compare listed design process models | The original evidence-to-revision aid is a teaching organiser only | It is **not** a reproduction, substitute or claimed equivalent of the QCAA-listed models. A later lesson must compare the named models with properly sourced originals. |
| Printed p.14: balance aesthetic, cultural, economic, social and technical features | Days 2–4, 7–9 flag competing requirements in fiction | Cultural requirements are unknown unless a particular stakeholder supplies them. No invented cultural facts. |
| Printed p.14: simple/complex design problems; stakeholders include users, clients, audiences and technicians; define problems from analysed requirements and existing designs | Days 2–4 identify different roles, distinguish source from inference, frame a problem | This pack has fictional briefs and **no actual stakeholder interview or empirical existing-design study**. |
| Printed pp.14–15: write a problem with stakeholder features and constraints; identify and describe design criteria, including usefulness and accessibility | Days 3–4, 8–10 write checkable criteria and review choices against them | Criterion claims are about paper concepts, not demonstrated real-world accessibility or usability. |
| Printed p.15: principles of good design include innovative, useful, aesthetic, accessible and sustainable; named styles and designers also appear | Checkable usefulness/access features begin to inform decisions | A complete principles, historical-design and design-style sequence is still required; the syllabus use of “accessible” is not a full technical accessibility standard. |
| Printed pp.16–17: ideation/schematic sketching, physical/digital low-fidelity prototyping, divergent ideas, feedback, evaluation and refinement | Days 6–9 make labelled layouts or tactile/digital diagrams and revise a concept | Only an initial rehearsal. No construction, user testing, actual feedback interview or full proposal. |
| Printed pp.15–17: design styles, elements and principles, a possible stakeholder interview, source/IP documentation, visual proposal | Only initial representation and justification are rehearsed | Named designers, sourced historical designs, comparison, actual stakeholder feedback, IP record and full proposal require later teaching. |
| Printed p.6: embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in planning, teaching and assessment | No First Nations cultural material is invented here | School should plan appropriate, locally informed content and permissions rather than treating generic fictional cards as that coverage. |
| Printed p.5: schools develop **2–4 assessments** across Units 1–2, at least one in each unit, assessing each objective at least once; printed p.12 reporting | Days 5/10 are public formative checks with next moves | **Not school instruments.** The school selects, administers, judges and reports its own assessment. |

**Teacher adaptation:** Reorder to fit the school's course map and authentic local brief. Verify a real brief's stakeholder consent, accessibility, safety, costs, cultural information and constraints with responsible people. These cards supply only fictional evidence. If a learner uses text or tactile objects for a spatial target, assess the represented spatial relationship and separately record any support; never infer an impairment or design need from the learner's chosen mode.