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






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






3. A tendency to interpret ambiguous images as simple and a complete unit - versus complex and incomplete. (Gestalt principle of perception).






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






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






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






7. The visual clarity of text - generally based on the size - typeface - contrast - text block - and spacing of the characters used.






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






9. It is often preferable to settle for a satisfactory solution - rather than pursue an optimal solution.






10. A method of presentation in which information is presented in descending order of importance. (Critical information presented first).






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






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






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






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






15. A relationship between variables in a system where the consequences of an event are fed back in order to modify the event in the future.






16. All products progress sequentially through four stages of existence: introduction - growth - maturity - and decline.






17. A tendency to prefer faces in which the eyes - nose - lips and other features are close to the average of a population.






18. A technique for bringing attention to an area of text or image.






19. 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?)






20. A phenomenon of memory in which items presented at the beginning and end of a list are more likely to be recalled than items in the middle of a list.






21. A technique used to teach a desired behavior by reinforcing increasingly accurate approximations of the behavior.






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






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






24. 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.)






25. People tend to prefer savanna- like environments to other types of environments. Open areas - scattered trees - water - and uniform grassiness rather than other natural environments such as desert - jungle - and complex mtns.






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






27. A property of visual equivalence among elements in a form.






28. Pictures are remembered better than words.






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






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






31. A ratio within the elements of a form - such as height to width - approximating 0.618.






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






33. A Gestalt principle of organization holding that aspects of perceptual field that move or function in a similar manner will be perceived as a unit






34. As the flexiblity of a system increases - its usability decreases.






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






36. The time required to move to a target is a function of the target size and distance to the target.


37. 80% of the effects generated by any large system are caused by 20% of the variables.






38. A technique that influences decision making and judgement by manipulating the way information is presented.






39. Hierarchical organization is the simplest structure for visualizing and understanding complexity.






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


41. 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.






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






43. A tendency to see people and things iwth baby- faced features as more naive - helpless - and honest than those with mature features.






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






45. An original model on which something is patterned






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






47. Tendency to perceive a set of individual elements as a single - recogniable pattern - rather than multiple - individual elements.






48. A relationship between controls and their movements or effects. When th effect corresponds to the expectation - the mapping is considered to be good or natural.






49. A state of mental focus so intense that awareness of the 'real' world is lost - generally resulting in a feeling of joy and satisfaction.






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