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






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






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






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






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






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






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


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






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






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






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






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






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






15. 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.






16. A point of physical or attentional entry into a design. (Minimal Barriers - Points of Prospect - Progressive Lures)






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






25. An original model on which something is patterned






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






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






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






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






30. 80% of the effects generated by any large system are caused by 20% of the variables.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






38. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






44. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






50. 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.