Senior Design Project Program Student Resources

Documenting the Design Process: Design Notebook Examples

A design notebook's usefulness is aided by occasional "time outs" from the scribbling of notes and calculations. Periodic assessment of the state of the project in the form of a thoughtful paragraph or annotated diagram can significantly improve the documentation of the design process.

The links below give a glimpse of pages from notebooks of former students in UT-Austin's Mechanical Engineering Design Projects Program. The pages are not necessarily perfect examples in terms of spelling, legibility, or grammar, but they do demonstrate ways of giving others a peek at your thought processes (remember, the project notebooks belong to the sponsors). The lessons are equally valuable for personal journals that may sit unviewed for years.

• When running experiments, describe the planning undertaken and record more than just a column of numbers. If the data requires some explanation, write a post-test interpretation guide.
• When the tests are complete, analyze the results, evaluate the implications, and rethink your approach if necessary.
• When designing a part or a system, explain the reasoning behind your decisions - reasoning example 1, reasoning example 2, and reasoning example 3.
• Lay out your observations and acknowledge a project landmark.