Commercial viability: saving space
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can identify and understand the factors in making products commercially viable.
Key learning points
- Commercial viability is whether a product can be made, sold, and make a profit in the real world.
- Commercial viability helps businesses make decisions about materials, manufacturing, pricing, and marketing.
- It ensures the product is realistic, meets customer needs, and can compete with similar products in the market.
Keywords
Commercial viability - the likelihood of a product being successful in its target market and making a profit
Profit - the money a business earns after paying all its costs
Target market - the specific group of people a product is designed and sold for
Common misconception
Commercial viability only relates to how well a product works.
A product can work well or be aesthetically pleasing, but if it’s too expensive to make, doesn’t meet market demand, or won’t sell at a profit, it isn’t commercially viable.
Teacher tip
Use real-life product case studies (e.g., successful and unsuccessful products) to show students how good design doesn’t always mean commercial success. Discuss factors like cost of production, target market, pricing, and demand.
Equipment
Examples of successful and unsuccessful products.
Licence
Lesson video
Loading...
Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.What are coatings or treatments applied to a material or product called?
Q2.Before applying any surface finish to timber, the timber must be properly ...
Q3.The wood cut from trees to use in manufacturing is called ...
Q4.What tool does this image show?
Q5.When sanding, it is important that you always sand in the direction of the ...
Q6.Put these grits in order from the roughest to the smoothest grades.
Assessment exit quiz
4 Questions
Q1.The likelihood of a product being successful in its target market and making a profit is called ...
Q2.What is the money a business earns after paying all of its costs?
Q3.The specific group of people a product is designed and sold for is called the ...
Q4.When should designers research and consider commercial viability of the product?
To help you plan your 10 design and technology lesson on: Commercial viability: saving space, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 10 design and technology lesson on: Commercial viability: saving space, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 design and technology lessons from the Saving space context unit, dive into the full secondary design and technology curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.