◇ OpenCyber Academy
Engineering · Chapter 25 · English

Chapter 25 — Design studio I

Open, free learning for anyone who wants to protect people and technology. No account is required to read this text or its worked answers.

Chapter 25 — Design studio I

Lesson map

Lesson 25 published. Map, example, EX073.

flowchart TD
  N0["Learning outcomes"]
  N1["25.1 Studio work"]
  N2["25.2 Critique received"]
  N3["25.3 Responses and trade-offs"]
  N4["25.4 Documentation"]
  N5["Synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5
  N5 --> EX["Worked example"]
  EX --> Q["Exercise EX073"]

Logical drawing

flowchart LR
  N0["Learning outcomes"]
  N1["25.1 Studio work"]
  N2["25.2 Critique received"]
  N3["25.3 Responses and trade-offs"]
  N4["25.4 Documentation"]
  N5["Synthesis"]
  N0 --> N1 --> N2 --> N3 --> N4 --> N5 --> Q["EX073"]

[Learning outcomes]
    |
    v
[25.1 Studio work]
    |
    v
[25.2 Critique received]
    |
    v
[25.3 Responses and trade-offs]
    |
    v
[25.4 Documentation]
    |
    v
[Synthesis]
    |
    v
[Worked example] --> [Exercise EX073]

Learning outcomes

You will (1) present an identity design for critique; (2) respond to critique with evidence; (3) record decisions and actions.

25.1 Studio work

A design studio is a structured session where Sana presents work in progress and invited peers question it. She brings the architecture diagram, data model, lifecycle flows, threat ranking and a list of open questions. Attendees include Dr Hale, two fellow students, a council application owner and a service desk team leader. Studios catch design problems while they are cheap to fix. Sana's goal is not to defend the design but to discover its weaknesses before staff and auditors do, so she asks attendees to focus on what would break.

25.2 Critique received

The service desk leader points out that call-back verification fails for new starters whose phone numbers are not yet in HR records. A fellow student asks what happens to access when HR records a leaver date in error. The application owner notes that some vendors take weeks to support SCIM. Each comment is a hypothesis about a weakness. Sana does not argue in the room; she records each comment, asks clarifying questions and later checks it against evidence, changing the design where the comment holds up.

25.3 Responses and trade-offs

For new starters, Sana adds in-person verification with photo identification on the first day. For erroneous leaver dates, she adds a short grace period for disabling, during which HR can reverse the change, balanced against the four-hour requirement by making the grace period one hour. For slow vendors, she accepts scripted daily exports as an interim connector, documented as residual risk. Each trade-off is recorded with the options considered and the reason for the choice, so it can be revisited if circumstances change.

25.4 Documentation

After the studio, Sana writes a short record: attendees, material presented, every comment, her response and actions with owners and dates. She sends it to participants to confirm accuracy. The record shows how the design evolved and why, which helps her examiners and anyone who later maintains the system and wonders why there is a one-hour grace period. Short, prompt records are far more useful than long ones written weeks later from fading memory. The record also feeds the decision log used in the thesis.

Worked example

Three studio comments lead to first-day in-person verification for new starters, a one-hour leaver grace period and interim scripted connectors for slow vendors, all recorded with reasons.

Synthetic case. Studio participants and comments are synthetic.

Errors and limits

Defending a design in the studio instead of recording and testing comments wastes the session's value.

Exercises

Synthesis

Studios expose design weaknesses early, and recorded responses and trade-offs show how the design improved.

Continue studying — chapter 25 of 50

← Chapter 24 (draft) · Course chapter index · Chapter 26 (draft) →