Test your basic knowledge |

Design Principles

Subject : engineering
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. The relative ease with which a destination - idea - or concept may be reached.






2. Elements that are connected by uniform visual properties - such as color - are perceived to be more related than elements that are not connected.






3. A technique of combining many units of information into a limited number of units or chunks - so that the information is easier to process and remember.






4. A phenomenon of visual processing in which certain line orientations are more quickly and easily processed and discriminated than other line orientations.






5. An activity will be pursued only if its benefits are equal to or greater than the costs. (ie. How much reading is too much to get the point of a message?)






6. A sequence of numbers in which each number is the sum of the preceding two.






7. An action or ommission of action yielding an unintended result.






8. Tendency to form an overall positive impression of a person on the basis of one positive characteristic






9. A method of limiting the actions that can be performed on a system.






10. An attribute of an object that allows people to intuitively know how to use it






11. The greater the effort to accomplish a task - the less likely the task will be accomplished successfully.






12. The time it takes to make a decision increases as the number of alternatives increases.

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13. Beauty in design results from purity of function. Interpreted in 2 ways: A description of beauty or a prescription for beauty.






14. The deliberate use of a weak element that will fail in order to protect other elements in the system from damage.






15. A phenomenon in which mental processing is made slower and less accurate by competing mental processes.






16. A process of repeating a set of operation until a specific result is achieved.






17. A tendency to prefer environments with unobstructed views (prospects) and areas of concealment and retreat (refuges).






18. A technique used to asociate a stimulus with an unconscious physical or emotional response.






19. The ratio of relevant to irrelevant information in a display. The highest possible signal- to- noise ratio is desirable in design.






20. A Gestalt law of organization; elements arrange in a straight line or a smooth curve are perceived as a group - and are interpreted as being more related than elements not on the line or curve.






21. Elements perceived as either figures (objects of focus) or ground (the rest of the perceptual field)






22. Successful products typically follow four stages of creation: requirements - design - development - and testing.






23. A method of reorganizing information to make the information simpler - more meaningful and easier to remember. (ie. First Letter - Keyword - Rhyme - Feature Name)






24. Elements that are similar are perceived to be more related than elements that are dissimilar.






25. An ability to detect threatening stimuli more efficiently than nonthreatening stimuli.






26. The distressing state of thought caused by recognizing an inconsistency between behavior/thought and value/belief.






27. A process in which similar characteristics evolve independently in multiple systems.






28. The usability of a system is improved when similar parts are expressed in similar ways.






29. The use of pictorial images to improve the recognition and recall of signs and controls.






30. There are five ways to organize information: Category - time - location - alphabet - and continuum.






31. A technique of composition in which a medium is divided into thirds - creating aesthetic positions for the primary elements of a design.






32. The use of more elements than necessary to maintain the performance of a system in the event of failure of one or more of the elements.






33. A tendency to see objects and patterns as 3D when certain visual cues are present.






34. The tendency to see attractive people as more intelligent - competent - moral and sociable than unattractive people.






35. There are three ways to organize materials to support a load or to contain and protect something: Mass structures - frame structures - and shell structures.






36. A term used to describe a set of data - that when plotted - forms a symmetrical - bell- shaped curve.






37. The ratio of face to body in an image that influences the way the person in the image is perceived. (High = intelligent / Low = physical)






38. A diagram that describes the general pattern followed by the eyes when looking at evenly distributed - homogeneous information.






39. When participants realise the aim of the study and may change their behaviour to help or disrupt the study.






40. A phenomenon of memory in which information that is analyzed deeply is better recalled than information that is analyzed superficially.






41. Memory for recognizing things is better than memory for recalling things.






42. Adjusting parts of a device in relation to each other to create a sense of unity and cohesion.






43. The process of organizing information into related groupings in order to manage complexity and reinforce relationships in the information.






44. The act of measuring certain sensitive variable in a system can alter them - and confound the accuracy of the measurement.






45. The designs that help people perform optimally are often not the same as the designs that people find most desirable.






46. A method of managing system complexity that involves dividing large systems into multiple - smaller self- contained systems.






47. A phenomenon of memory in which noticeably different things are more likely to be recalled that common things. (AKA Isolation/Novelty Effect)






48. The quality of system output is dependent on the quality of system input.






49. A preference for a particular ratio of waist size to hip size in men and women. Men prefer 0.7 in women. Women prefer 0.9 in men.






50. A phenomenon in which perception and behavior changes as a result of personal expectations or the expectations of others. (Halo effect - Hawthorne effect - Pygmalion effect - Placebo effect - Rosenthal effect - Demand characteristics.)