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






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






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






4. People understand and interact with systems and environments based on mental representations developed from experience.






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






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






7. A method of creating imagery - emotions - and understanding of events through an interaction between a storyteller and an audience.






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






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






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






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






12. A technique used to modify behavior by reinforcing desired behaviors - and ignoring or punishing undesired behaviors.






13. The relative ease with which a destination - idea - or concept may be reached.






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






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






16. The use of simplified and incomplete models of a design to explore ideas - elaborate requirements - refine specifications - and test functionality.






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






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






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






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






21. 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.






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






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






24. 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.






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






26. 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.






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






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


29. 1) Physiological 2) Safety 3) Love 4) Self-Esteem 5) Self-Actualization


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






31. A tendency to assume that a system that works at one scale will also work at a smaller or larger scale. (2 kinds: Load assumptions and Interaction assumptions)






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






41. 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.






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






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






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






45. An original model on which something is patterned






46. 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?)






47. The tendency for people to perform better or worse based on the expectations of another.






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






49. 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.






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