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






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






3. 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.)






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






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






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






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






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






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






10. Repeated exposure to stimuli for which people have neutral feelings will increase the likeability of the stimuli.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






19. 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.






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






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






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






23. 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.






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






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






26. 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.






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






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






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






30. 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?)






31. 80% of the effects generated by any large system are caused by 20% of the variables.






32. 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.






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






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






35. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






45. 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.






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






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






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






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






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