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. Patients experience treatment effects based on their belief that a treatment will work.






2. A space that has territorial markers - opportunities for surveillance - and clear indications of activity and ownership.






3. 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.






4. A property in which a form is made up of parts similar to the whole or to one another.






5. Elements that are close together are percieved to be more related than elements that are farther apart.






6. The level of control provided by a system should be related to the proficiency and experience levels of the people using the system.






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






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






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






10. The usability of a system is improved when its status and methods of use are clearly visible.






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






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






13. 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.






14. The debgree to which prose can be understood - based on the complexity of words and sentences.






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






16. Teachers treat students differently based on their expectations of how students will perform.






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






18. Using more elements than is necessary to offset the effects of unknown variables which may cause a system failure.






19. Designs should help people avoid errors and minimize the negative consequences of errors when they do occur.






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






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






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






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






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






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






26. 80% of the effects generated by any large system are caused by 20% of the variables.






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






28. 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.)






29. 1) Functionality 2) Reliability 3) Usability 4) Proficiency 5) Creativity. In order for design to be successful - it must meet ppl's basic need before it can attempt to satisfy higher- level needs.






30. A tendency to interpret shaded or dark areas of an object as shadows resulting from a light source above the object.






31. An original model on which something is patterned






32. The tendency for people to behave differently when they know they are being studied






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






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






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






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






37. 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?)






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






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






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






41. 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.






42. 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.






43. Teh act of copying properties of familiar objects - organisms - or environments in order to realize specifice benefits afforded by those properties.






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






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






46. The process of using spatial and environmental information to navigate to a destination.






47. A point of physical or attentional entry into a design. (Minimal Barriers - Points of Prospect - Progressive Lures)






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






49. A method of illustrating relationships and patterns in system behaviors by representing two or more system variables in a controlled way.






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