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






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






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






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






5. 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.






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






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






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






9. Pictures are remembered better than words.






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






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






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






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






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






15. 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.






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






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






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






19. 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)






20. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






26. A Gestalt principle of organization holding that aspects of perceptual field that move or function in a similar manner will be perceived as a unit






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






35. 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.)






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






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






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






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


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






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






42. 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.






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






44. A sequence of numbers in which each number is the sum of the preceding two.






45. 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.






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






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






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






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






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