Design quality and design efficiency; definitions, metrics and relevant design experiences

Abstract

Design quality metrics will be defined in terms of the probability that a completed design satisfies its specifications The definition rests on the concept of atomic design operations, and is by nature canonical. It is shown that this definition is truly analogous to test quality, leading to a unified model of test and design quality. Another important aspect of the design is its efficiency, related to design parameters. The metrics of design efficiency may be expressed as a cost function, and different design proposals may be evaluated against estimated design efficiency. Examples from several years of graduate level student design experiments will be given in order to demonstrate the usefulness of these metrics.