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






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






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






4. 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.






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






6. 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.






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






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






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






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






11. 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)






12. 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.






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






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






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






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


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






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






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






20. 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.






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






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






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






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






25. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






43. A method of illustrating relationships and patterns in system behaviors by representing two or more system variables in a controlled way.






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






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






46. 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.)






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






48. 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.






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






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