Research question
What makes an engineering evaluation useful for choosing between approaches, rather than merely producing a score?
Motivation
An evaluation should connect to a decision. A result that cannot clarify a trade-off, expose a failure mode, or shape a next step may not answer the question a team needs to resolve.
Working hypothesis
A useful evaluation needs a clear decision context, representative tasks, stated limits, and results that can be interpreted without treating a single measure as the whole picture.
Proposed method
A possible next step is to define a bounded comparison, identify tasks that reflect the intended use, document the evaluation conditions, and agree in advance what evidence would inform the decision.
Status
This is an open question; no evaluation has been run yet. The approach may change as the scope becomes clearer.
Next steps
Specify the decision to be informed, select a small set of representative tasks, and document the limitations before interpreting any measurements.