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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






13. 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.






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






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






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






17. 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.






18. 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.)






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






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






21. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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


33. The time required to move to a target is a function of the target size and distance to the target.


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






35. Pictures are remembered better than words.






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






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






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






39. 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)






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






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






42. 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.






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






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






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






46. 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.






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






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






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






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