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






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






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






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






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






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






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






8. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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


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






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






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






25. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






40. 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.






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






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






43. Given a choice between functionally equivalent designs - the simplest design should be selected.


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






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






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


47. 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?)






48. 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)






49. Pictures are remembered better than words.






50. 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.