Lesson 6: Design Trade-Offs – Evaluating Platform Prototypes

• What makes a platform idea viable versus unworkable?
• How do design features shape user behavior?
• What trade-offs emerge between engagement and ethics?
• Can a feature be both beneficial and harmful?
• How do we evaluate feasibility using system reasoning rather than preference?

Prototype
Trade-off
Feasibility
Echo chamber
Moderation
Personalization
Data harvesting
Accountability
Censorship
User agency
System constraint

HS ETS1-2
Evaluate competing design solutions using criteria and constraints.

Science and Engineering Practices:
Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Developing and Using Models
Constructing Explanations

Crosscutting Concepts:
Systems and System Models
Cause and Effect
Stability and Change

• Evaluating competing proposals
• Identifying strengths and weaknesses
• Writing structured justification
• Synthesizing prior learning into applied critique
• Defending a classification decision using evidence

Day 1 – Prototype Evaluation

Students analyze fictional platform concepts from the Prototype Critique Activity, such as:

EchoSpace
ChirpCheck
AnonTalk
LifeStream
Kindr
VoteVid
DreamLink
FocusNet
Pulse
Eterna

Students identify:

Primary design feature
Engagement potential
Amplification consequences
Ethical risks
Feasibility concerns

Students classify each platform as:

Potential
Unworkable

They must justify classification using amplification logic and ethical reasoning from Segments 4 and 5.

Purpose:
Move from analyzing existing systems to evaluating new system proposals.

DOK: 3 – Analyze and justify design evaluation.

Day 2 – Pattern Identification in Design

Students identify patterns across prototypes:

What types of ideas were labeled Potential?
What types were labeled Unworkable?
What risks appear repeatedly?

Students reflect on:

Which design features consistently introduce risk?
Where do engagement incentives conflict with user well-being?

Purpose:
Extract generalizable design principles.

DOK: 3 – Synthesize across multiple examples.

Day 3-4 – Applying Critique to Personal Design

Students answer:

What mistake must we avoid in our own platform design?
What safeguard must be intentionally built in?
How do we balance engagement with responsibility?

Students draft preliminary design principles that will guide their final project.

Purpose:
Transition from critique to intentional system design.

DOK: 4 – Apply analysis to original planning.

Technology companies prototype and evaluate new features constantly. Many features fail due to ethical backlash, unintended harm, or unsustainable engagement models.

Students engage in authentic design evaluation processes that mirror industry practice.

• If an idea sounds innovative, it must be viable.
• Users will always behave responsibly.
• Ethical concerns can be solved later.
• Personalization is automatically positive.
• Engagement and ethics are mutually exclusive.

• Provide structured evaluation templates.
• Offer sentence stems for justification.
• Allow group discussion before written classification.
• Extension: Require ranking of prototypes based on sustainability and ethical resilience

Formative Assessments:

• Written justification for at least two platform classifications
• Identification of one repeated design risk pattern
• Drafted personal design principle

Exit Ticket Prompt:

Choose one prototype labeled Unworkable.
Explain specifically which system feature makes it unsustainable or harmful.

Evaluation Criteria:

Clarity of reasoning
Connection to amplification model
Recognition of trade-offs
Evidence-based justification