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 for bringing attention to an area of text or image.






2. 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.






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. 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.






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






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






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






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






10. 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?)






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






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






13. 80% of the effects generated by any large system are caused by 20% of the variables.






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






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






16. 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.






17. 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)






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






27. A strategy for managing information complexity in which only necessary or requested information is displayed at any given time.






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






29. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






36. A technique for preventing unintended actions by requiring verification of the actions before they are performed.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






45. The tendency to perceive objects as unchanging - despite changes in sensory input. (such as perspective - lighting - color or size)






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






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






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






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






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