design criteria vs criterion

design criteria and criterion both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
design criteria	Yes	No	No	No
criterion	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, criterion is a hypernym of design criteria; that is, criterion is a word with a broader meaning than design criteria:

design criteria: criteria that designers should meet in designing some system or device
criterion: the ideal in terms of which something can be judged

Other hypernyms of design criteria include standard.

design criteria (noun)	criterion (noun)
criteria that designers should meet in designing some system or device	the ideal in terms of which something can be judged
	a basis for comparison; a reference point against which other things can be evaluated