NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies externals (92006 and 92007)

The NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies externals

Level 1 Digital Technologies has four standards worth 5 credits each. The other two, 92004 and 92005, are internal.

The NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies exam in 2026 and 2027

The 2026 Level 1 Digital Technologies exam is on Thursday 26 November, in the morning session. NZQA's 2027 timetable is not out yet: it says exams run from 9 November to 3 December 2027 and the subject timetable is due in December 2026. NZQA's specifications for both years say the assessment is an online digital examination, and you need computer access.

• Answer format: questions are in short or extended answer format, and you are expected to write no more than 800 to 1200 words in each assessment.
• 92006: resources come with the exam, including a list of Nielsen's heuristics. Examples of usability principles are drawn from mātāpono Māori, Nielsen's usability heuristics, and concepts such as internal and external consistency and accessibility. You study an interface of your own choice before the assessment.
• 92007: you answer questions about your own design for a Level 6 digital technologies outcome, and the questions relate to the design stage only. NZQA lists the need or opportunity, the users and their requirements, how ideas were generated, how the final design met the requirements, manaakitanga or kaitiakitanga, feedback, and fitness for purpose. The design should be for a feasible outcome such as a website, mobile app, game, software application, animation or robotics project, not a standalone logo or poster. The 2027 specification adds that AI-generated designs are not acceptable.

Usability (92006)

The standard (version 2) lets you understand usability through usability principles. Achieved describes the purpose of human-computer interfaces and describes usability principles and how they are used. Merit examines usability: it explains how the principles are applied and the usability in terms of them. Excellence evaluates: it compares the usability of interfaces and applies the principles to suggest improvements.

Take a school canteen ordering app. At Achieved you name four different heuristics and show each in the app: error prevention (a confirmation before you cancel an order), recognition rather than recall (your usual lunch appears as a suggestion), match between system and the real world (menu sections named like the counters), and help users recover from errors (a clear message saying what went wrong and how to fix it). At Merit you explain how each helps a user in a particular scenario, such as a Year 9 student ordering in the five minutes before first break. At Excellence you compare it with another interface, such as the school website, using the same principles, and suggest an improvement tied to one of them, for example adding an undo for a wrongly removed item to improve user control and freedom. NZQA's 2025 report says strong candidates also separated the pairs that are often confused: user control and freedom (an emergency exit or undo) from flexibility and efficiency of use (shortcuts for experts), and error prevention from error recovery. It also says responses using mātāpono Māori, such as accurate te reo and rangatiratanga, generally did well.

Designing an outcome (92007)

The standard (version 5) says a design communicates how a completed outcome would look or function, through sketches, mock-ups, annotations or descriptions. Achieved describes a need or opportunity, the users and requirements, generates ideas, and describes how the completed design meets the requirements and uses manaakitanga or kaitiakitanga. Merit refines the design using feedback and explains how design decisions improve its quality. Excellence justifies how decisions made in the design stage contribute to its fitness for purpose.

A made-up example. A student designs a club timetable app after finding that students miss meetings because the times are on three different notice boards. The need is real, the users are students and kaiako, and a requirement is that every club can be found in two taps. At Merit, feedback from five students showed the first layout hid the day, so the student moved it to the top, and explains that this helped users find a club faster. For manaakitanga, they chose high-contrast colours, te reo Māori headings next to English ones, and larger touch targets, so that the app cares for users with different needs, not only "respecting feedback". At Excellence, the student justifies the final design by linking each decision to a requirement and the original need. The 2025 report says a common weakness was describing what changed without explaining why it mattered, and that candidates must keep to the design stage, not the development of the outcome.

How the NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies externals are marked

In 2024 and 2025 NZQA scored each standard from N0 to E8, out of 8 in total. N1 and N2 are Not Achieved, A3 and A4 are Achieved, M5 and M6 are Merit, and E7 and E8 are Excellence. NZQA then turns the score into a grade using that year's cut scores. NZQA has not published the 2026 schedules yet.

NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies cut scores

These cut scores are NZQA's grade boundaries, as the score at which each grade starts. NZQA's 2025 report says 92007 was a digitally submitted mini portfolio in 2025, and the 2026 specification says it becomes an end-of-year exam in 2026, so the 92007 cut scores are for the earlier format and may not carry over. NZQA's 2023 schedules were pilot schedules for earlier versions of these standards, so only 2024 and 2025 are listed.

Cut scores 2025

From NZQA's assessment schedules: 92006 and 92007. Each grade starts at:

Cut scores 2024

From NZQA's assessment schedules: 92006 and 92007. Each grade starts at:

Test your heuristics before you move on:

Exam answers

The answers and a worked mark scheme come with today's paper once it is marked. We do not publish official or past paper answers. Every question on the daily paper is our own.

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 of 8 questions worth 25 to 35 marks, not a full NCEA exam, and it is not written by NZQA. It does not practise these two standards: its questions are on computer systems, networks, binary, programming and cyber security, and none are on usability heuristics or the design process. Use it for general digital skills, and practise 92006 by analysing real interfaces and 92007 with your own design work. For the whole course, see the NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies guide.

Are the NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies externals changing?

NCEA still applies in 2026 and 2027, and NZQA's 2027 assessment specification for Level 1 Digital Technologies keeps 92006 and 92007 as external standards worth 5 and 5 credits. In 2028, Year 11 moves to a new foundational award focused on reading, writing and maths. Check NZQA before planning beyond 2027.

Common mistakes in the NCEA Level 1 Digital Technologies externals

• Describing features without naming a principle. NZQA's 2025 report says Not Achieved candidates talked about interface features with no usability principle.
• Using the literal meaning of a heuristic. "User control and freedom is when you can roam around the website" is the example the report gives.
• Confusing similar pairs. Error prevention and error recovery, and user control and flexibility, are often mixed up.
• Choosing an interface with few features. The report says a school website or your own interface often lacked the dynamic features to show many heuristics.
• Blurring design and development. The report lists focusing on the developed outcome in 92007 as a Not Achieved error.
• A weak manaakitanga or kaitiakitanga. Show it in design decisions that care for users, not just by respecting feedback.
• Using AI-generated images as your design thinking. The report says these were not accepted as design evidence, and the 2027 specification says AI-generated designs are not acceptable.

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