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. Using more elements than is necessary to offset the effects of unknown variables which may cause a system failure.






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






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






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






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






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






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






8. An original model on which something is patterned






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






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






11. 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.






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






13. 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)






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






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






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






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






18. A tendency to see people and things iwth baby- faced features as more naive - helpless - and honest than those with mature features.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






28. 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.






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


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






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






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






33. An ability to detect threatening stimuli more efficiently than nonthreatening stimuli.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






48. 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.






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






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