NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies: usability, design and the exam

NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies standards

That is 10 external and 10 internal credits, 20 in total. NZQA's past exams and assessment schedules are on its Digital Technologies past exams page.

The NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies exam

NZQA's 2027 assessment specifications say both standards are assessed in an online digital exam, with short or extended answers and a guide of no more than 800 to 1,200 words for each standard. You need to prepare for both before the day: an interface you have studied for 92006, and a design of your own for 92007.

What each external covers

Usability in human-computer interfaces (92006)

You study an interface of your own choice before the exam, then answer questions about its usability. For 2027, NZQA says the usability principles are drawn from Mātāpono Māori (Māori principles), Nielsen's usability heuristics, and concepts such as internal and external consistency and accessibility. A list of Nielsen's heuristics is provided in the exam.

Designing a digital technologies outcome (92007)

You answer questions about your own design for a Level 6 outcome, such as a website, mobile app, game, software application, animation or robotics project. The questions cover the design stage only: the need or opportunity, the users and their requirements, how you generated ideas, how you used feedback, how you applied manaakitanga or kaitiakitanga, how your design decisions improved quality, and how the final design is fit for purpose.

Worked examples

Usability: Nielsen's heuristics in an app

Strong 92006 answers name a heuristic, point to a specific feature of the interface you studied, and explain how it helps or hinders the user. For a school timetable app, that might look like this:

Usability: internal and external consistency

Internal consistency means the interface matches itself: buttons, colours and wording behave the same on every screen. External consistency means it matches what users already know from other interfaces, such as a magnifying glass for search. Accessibility means everyone can use it, for example with enough colour contrast, text alternatives for images and keyboard navigation.

Design: explaining a decision

An Achieved answer says what you did: "I used a large Start button." A Merit answer explains how the decision improved quality: "Testers aged 12 to 14 missed the small button, so I made it larger and moved it to the centre." An Excellence answer justifies fitness for purpose: it links the decision to the users' requirements and the feedback you gathered, and shows how the final design meets the need.

Practise arranging elements on a page in our HTML, CSS and JavaScript course. Pressing Mark opens the question in the course, where you answer it and it is marked:

Grades, credits and endorsements

Every NCEA standard is graded Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit or Excellence, and earns its credits at whatever grade you reach. Achieved shows you meet the standard, Merit shows deeper understanding, and Excellence shows it applied to harder, unfamiliar problems.

• The certificate: NCEA Level 1 needs 60 credits at Level 1 or above, plus the 20-credit literacy and numeracy co-requisite, which you can gain any time before you leave school. Since 2024 you can no longer carry 20 credits over from the level below.
• Certificate endorsement: 50 credits at Merit or better gives a Merit endorsement; 50 at Excellence gives an Excellence endorsement.
• Course endorsement: 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence in one subject in one year, with at least 3 from internal and 3 from external standards in most subjects.

Use the daily paper as a practice exam

Uni-Sine publishes a free daily paper on the NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies track. It is a short timed paper: 8 questions worth 25 to 35 marks, marked instantly, with worked answers. It is not a full NCEA exam and it is not written by NZQA, so treat it as a quick daily practice test alongside NZQA's past papers.

• What it covers well: computer science knowledge such as programming fundamentals, algorithms, data types, binary and data representation, which supports the programming internal 92004 and general understanding.
• What it does not cover: both externals. Usability and the design of your own outcome are not on the daily paper, and nor is developing an outcome for 92005. It also includes networks, the CPU, cyber security and Boolean logic, which are not Level 1 Digital Technologies externals.

A good routine is one daily paper under timed conditions, then a careful look at every mark you dropped, then one NZQA past paper a week in the weeks before the exam.

NCEA changes for 2026, 2027 and beyond

NCEA still applies in 2026 and 2027, so the standards on this page are the ones you will sit. In 2028, Year 11 moves to a new foundational award focused on reading, writing and maths, and NCEA Level 1 ends. The Government agreed the structure of the new qualification system on 26 March 2026, and the Ministry of Education confirmed further details and the timeline on 16 May 2026.

Common mistakes in NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies

• Naming a heuristic without an example. Point to a real feature of the interface you studied.
• Describing how to use the interface. The marks are for explaining why it is usable or not.
• Writing about development in 92007. The questions are about the design stage only.
• Too simple an outcome. A logo or poster is not suitable; pick a website, app, game or similar.

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