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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






13. 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.






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






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






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






17. 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.






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






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






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






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






22. 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?)






23. 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






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






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






26. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






35. 80% of the effects generated by any large system are caused by 20% of the variables.






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






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






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






39. Pictures are remembered better than words.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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