In Technology, AI can generate a plausible-sounding design rationale from nothing. Context Triage requires students to sort the information they actually have before any argument begins — making selection a visible, assessable thinking act.
Students designing a product for a specific user group receive a set of eight information items: material cost data, a user interview summary, two existing product reviews, a safety standard excerpt, a sustainability rating, an irrelevant trend report, and a personal preference statement. The triage sorts these into Keep, Cut, and Question before any design sketching begins. The sorted set is submitted with the final design.
Students developing a digital solution for a school context triage a set of user feedback, technical specifications, feature requests, and competitor app reviews. The task requires them to distinguish between what the brief actually requires, what users want but the brief does not support, and what needs verification before it can inform a design decision. The triage record travels with the prototype submission.
| Category | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Keep | Directly answers the brief |
| Cut | Interesting but not relevant to brief |
| Question | Needs checking before use |
The triage is complete when every item has a category and a justification sentence. Justifications that say only "this is useful" or "this is not useful" do not meet the standard. The justification must name the brief purpose the item serves or fails to serve.
In Technology, AI can generate information sets that look like user research but are not grounded in any actual user. Where students have gathered information using AI tools, the Question category is where that information belongs until it has been checked against a real source.