Success criteria

Success criteria are measurable outcomes derived from the solution requirements that indicate the successful development of the product. IBO

Understanding Success Criteria

This section is to help you understand the importance of success sriteria.

What are they?

Success criteria are clear, measurable statements that show whether the finished product meets the requirements. They are derived directly from the problem statement and measurable solution requirements.

Why are they important?

  • They guide development decisions and keep scope focused.
  • They define objective tests you can run during implementation.
  • They support evaluation in Criterion E with evidence, not opinion.

Examples

Good (specific & measurable):

  1. Task manager: users can add/edit/delete tasks; sorting by due date ascending works; a due reminder appears within 1 minute of the set time.
  2. Quiz app: 10 questions load in under 1.5 s; score out of 10 shown instantly; review page lists each question, answer chosen, and time taken (s).
  3. Budget tracker: monthly total equals the sum of listed transactions; CSV export has columns date, category, amount, notes.
  4. Timetable planner: overlapping events show a red “conflict” badge; exporting a week includes a “conflict count” field (0 if none).
  5. Leaderboard: stores top 10 scores persistently; ties are ordered by earliest timestamp; clearing the app cache does not remove saved scores.
  6. Flashcards: daily goal is 20 reviews; progress bar reaches 100% only after 20 cards; streak increases by 1 day only when the goal is met.
  7. File organiser: uploading accepts .pdf/.docx only; files over 10 MB are blocked with a message; successful uploads are listed within 2 s.
  8. Weather dashboard: toggling °C/°F updates all temperature labels immediately; manual refresh returns new data (timestamp change) within 2 s.
  9. Simple simulation: changing a single input (e.g. initial speed) produces a visibly different path; rerunning with identical inputs reproduces the same path.

Poor (vague or subjective):

  • The interface is intuitive.
  • The app runs fast.
  • Data export works well.
  • The schedule makes sense.
  • It handles big files.
  • The results are accurate.
  • The graphs look nice.
  • It works on most devices.

Impact on the project

Good criteria reduce rework, prevent scope creep, and make testing straightforward. Poor criteria cause unclear goals, weak evaluation, and difficulty proving success to the client or teacher.

Recap

Motivated by constraints in school labs, this student will build a computing solution to explore projectile motion and two-body collisions. The tool accepts key parameters, simulates motion with or without drag, visualises trajectories, and calculates post-collision velocities. It will enable exporting and saving named runs for future analysis and comparison.

Success Criteria

Simulation Accuracy

  1. Single object, drag OFF: the arc and landing are identical to classroom examples; time of flight and maximum height are within a small tolerance for a test case.
  2. Single object, drag ON: with the same inputs as drag OFF, the arc is visibly lower/shorter and lands closer.
  3. Two objects (any angles): until the first touch (centre distance = r₁ + r₂), each object follows its own path.
  4. No collision case: if the distance stays > r₁ + r₂ for the simulation, objects fly and land with smooth motion.

Simulation Controls

  1. For each object I can set mass, radius, start position, speed, and angle. Units are shown and invalid inputs are rejected.
  2. Global settings (gravity, time step, duration) are editable; “Reset to defaults” restores values like g = 9.81 instantly.
  3. Run, Pause, and Reset work reliably. Re-running with the same inputs gives the same animation.

Collision Handling

  1. First contact: detect the first frame where centre distance ≤ r₁ + r₂; show a brief visual cue (e.g. colour pulse).
  2. Separation: objects continue with new trajectories and velocities.

Visualisation

  1. Animation is smooth (≈30 FPS or better).
  2. Trajectories have labelled axes (metres, seconds) and gridlines.

Data, Export, and Saving

  1. I can save/export the settings to a CSV file.
  2. I can load previously saved simulations.