Some clients believe that identifying their market, the market need and the market volume to a design subcontractor is tantamount to giving away a market opportunity. A design subcontractor is likely to produce poor results if this important information is kept hidden. Experience shows many products fail to gain market share because the client never really got the designers in tune with the market. If the client is still unwilling to disclose market information, perhaps the best course of action is for the client to file for a provisional patent to protect the intellectual property, and then engage the subcontract design house. The types of specification points or clauses The way to arrange a specification is as a list of bullet points, or clauses.
Bullet points have the advantage of being clear and concise.
A specification should describe all the required attributes of the project - make a separate, if attached, wish list. When writing a specification it is important to distinguish between required and desired. Think carefully before you state a desire as a requirement - if you specify that the project is to be no larger than a cassette case, be sure that the market really warrants that feature. The inputs are physical electronic connections that are activated by, for instance, an operator pressing a button, or a temperature dropping too low. Controls Controls are often an abstraction of inputs - a potentiometer input may be used to control the speed of a motor , or a keyboard switch may be used to ramp the motor speed down to zero.