During the design process or problem solving we need to apply convergent thinking to narrow our option to a selection.  When we have many options and are not comparing any to an existing one, the best option is to create a decision matrix where we establish a set of judgment criteria down the Y axis and weight each to its importance to judge our possibilities. 

If we are looking to compare our options against an existing choice, we can use the Pugh-method to compare against whether the criteria are better (+), less (-) or the same (S). this allows us to see where on is better but also what still are open items that can be improved.