UCEED Part B design based practice questions

 

In this page, I tried to come up with some practice questions for UCEED Part B design based questions, which is seen in the recent years papers. These questions are very much useful for your practice for UCEED 2027 and later year's syllabus. 

Note: Since we have access to free AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Cluade etc. I advise you to be smart and make use of the free tools for your preparation too. To help you with a start (in case you haven't thought of trying them) I've shared sample self searchable prompts/questions that you can try in any of the LLMs like ChatGPT, at the end of this page. 

Additionally, you can check my post on: A sample solution/sketch attempt for part B kind design problem

Sample Design Practice Questions:

Practice Ques 1: 

Women who have newly born babies usually takes their children outside along with them to markets, shopping, walking etc. It's always difficult for them to carry their child with hands. For that purpose we see a trolley type of wheeled cycle was introduced. You are working in a company where you are the product designer. You are asked to design a multi-purpose baby trolley  that will help women in most respects while outside. Show your design in at least two forms/sketches, representing the multiple distinct functionalities in each form.  

Practice Ques 2: 

Design an Organiser to carry most of the commonly used gadgets - phone, tablet, different variants of headphones, and charging cable/dock. 

Practice Ques 3: 

Intelligence Bureau of India usually carries investigation. The Central government of India decided to issue specially designed Multi-functionality pen to their agents so that they can be used at the times of their secret missions. You are the designer of that pen. Make the design and show in normal pen usage and different functionality usage too.

Practice Ques 4: 

Elders find it difficult to organise their things, like spectacles, tablets, syrups, pain relief balms, sprays, phone, chargers, combs, keys, notes etc. you are working in a design company and you are asked to design an organiser for elderly users. The organiser is supposed to accommodate as many features/products as possible that the elders can use.

Deign a product with the above requirements for home usage, covering as many needs as possible.

Practice Ques 5: 

Design the same product in Ques 4 for travel usage, that needs to cover the basic needs.

The product is supposed to be the only carry-to-be product for the elders so that they don’t miss any thing and can have the convenience of finding the all needed things in one place. 

Practice Ques 6: 

Design  a foldable baby sitting chair, for the purpose of making a baby feed solid foods, the product is meant for infants less than 1 year and so baby safety and secured sitting is important. Show the product in folded condition as well as in-use condition.

Practice Ques 7: 

Design an office umbrella stand capable of accommodating different sizes and types of umbrella, with purpose of fast drying, less space, wet handling, no wetting of floor etc. Represent with a neat sketch, clearly showing the features if any.

Practice Ques 8: 

Indian women usually find it challenging to organize Kitchen utensils (especially medium and big sized spoons, ladle etc.)

Ladles can come in different sizes and shapes, most stainless steel ladles are provided with a hole in the handle end for the convenience of hanging it. Design a multi purpose utensil/ladle organizer for convenience of usage. Show the product without utensils and with utensils.

Practice Ques 9: 

Working from home became part of their career for professionals. Unlike in offices where seating is taken care, arrangements at home are not full fledged for most of the working professions given the space constraint and convenience of usage. Having a dedicated laptop/computer table may not be an option possible for all professionals working at home. The current table mat designs in the market may be partially fulfilling the needs. Given the above problems, design a simple laptop table for home usage, that is easy to use, occupies less space, and also allow commonly used gadgets (including mobile phone) to be accommodated in the product when a user uses it. 

Some of the commonly used gadgets are: wired headsets, mouse, phone, small notes, pen. 

Practice Ques 10: 

As an extension to the above design requirement, come up with a design with additional feature of having facility for storing some of the gadgets (headsets, mouse, book/pens etc.) given that an user finds it repetitive and time consuming to arrange them everyday before starting their work, or organize it somewhere else at the end of their day’s work.

Practice Ques 11: 

Given the mandate of separating dry and wet waste in India, it is now common to see household people use regular dustbins for wet bins. Some families use disposable garbage covers with dustbins to keep it clean. However, the problem is when people were in the mid of cooking and dumping into the dustbin is difficult or needs the person to wash hands before throwing the waste into the bins. Handling with wet hands is seen to bring small flies and also smell. It is seen to be difficult for the families to clean the dustbins, especially the bins used for wet because of the design of the regular dustbins. Design a dustbin, for handling wet waste, for domestic usage, such that the bins are very easy to clean, has minimal effort in putting wet waste at any point of usage (while cooking with wet hands too) 

Practice Ques 12: 

Making a baby, bath is difficult and needs multiple people to handle the baby securely. Design a product for infants that can be easy for one person to give bath to  baby. The product needs to be compact, has to take less space in the home, easy to store, and needs to have the features of quick draining, less water consumption, easy for mother/ caretaker to handle wihile giving bathing, and also comfortable for the baby.

 Practice Ques 13: 

TV remotes are always preferred to be portable with the intention of making it usable at any corner of the room and by anyone. However, the Central Government of India had a requirement that for all the schools and colleges that they have, they wanted a fixed remote attached to a desk in the conference/lab rooms with an aesthetic design, unlike the traditional remote designs. The desk mounted remotes needs to be rotatable (to 180 degree) and is easy for the user to operate at sitting, standing or any other position that they prefer during demos/presentations. Design the remote  and represent the design in mounted position on the desk. 

Prompts suggestion for self search and self learning: 

Consider the below sample question

'Design an Organiser to carry most of the commonly used gadgets - phone, tablet, different variants of headphones, and charging cable/dock.'

The prompt that you can try in Google Gemini, ChatGPT etc. for this question can be as below

"Role: You are an expert design educator specializing in competitive industrial and product design entrance exams like UCEED and CEED.

The Challenge: Design an organiser to carry most of the commonly used gadgets: a smartphone, a tablet, various headphone variants (over-ear, on-ear, and TWS earbuds), and charging cables/docks.

Context: The final output must be submitted as a hand-made pencil sketch on paper within a limited time.

Please provide a comprehensive solution structured into the following four sections:

1. Design Ideology & Concept: What is the overarching theme, user persona, and core philosophy of this design? (e.g., modular, minimalist, or rugged). Explain why this ideology was chosen.

2. Key Design Features: List the specific ergonomic, functional, and material choices. How does it securely hold a heavy tablet while neatly managing long charging cables and accommodating bulky over-ear headphones?

3. Pencil Sketch Layout & Visualization Guide: Break down exactly how I should compose my sketch sheet to score maximum marks. Provide explicit instructions on what views to draw (e.g., isometric view showing the organiser in use, exploded view for internal features), line weights, shading focus, and where to place annotations.

4. Student Preparation Strategy: Give 3–4 practical, actionable tips on how I can practice and modify this specific concept to create my own unique variations during the actual exam."

I've given a generic prompt below, which can be a start point for you to get output suggestions from the LLMs for any design based practice 

"Act as an expert design mentor for UCEED/CEED exams. I need a comprehensive solution for the following design problem statement: "[Insert Problem Statement Here]".

The solution must be optimized for an exam format where I have to present a hand-made pencil sketch. Please break your response down into the following distinct sections:

1. Problem Breakdown & Ideology: Identify the core user needs, pain points, and safety/ergonomic factors. State the design philosophy (e.g., modular, sustainable, minimalist) and why it works best here.

2. Form & Functional Features: List 3-4 distinct features of the product. Explain the mechanical or material choices (e.g., telescopic joints, velcro, silicone bands) that solve the problem.

3. Exam Sheet Layout Guide: Guide me on how to structure my drawing sheet for maximum visual impact. Tell me what views to draw (e.g., isometric, side view, user-interaction view) and what parts need clear labels/annotations.

4. Variations for Practice: Give me 2 alternative design directions or constraints (e.g., "What if it had to be made cheaper?" or "What if it was for a child?") so I can practice modifying this concept."

You can also try in similar way to get sample practice questions (including part A) by sending previous years question paper as reference to LLM/AI-tool and asking it to provide similar practice questions and preferably with solutions and explanations for ease of learning.

Hope this helps. All the best with your self study.