Vocab Flashcards
(72 cards)
What does HCI stand for and what does it mean?
Human-Computer Reaction
It is the study of how people interact with computers and to what extent computer are or are not developed for successful interaction
What is affordance?
The way something looks should indicate how it can be manipulated
What is visibility?
The function of all controls one will interact with should be clearly marked
What is Iterative Design?
It’s a developer method.
Repeated cycles of feedback and analysis to improve before publicly launching
What does GUI stand for and what does it mean?
Graphical User Interface
Interface where users interact with visuals instead of command lines
What is an input?
A tool that delivers data from user to machine (keyboard, mouse)
OR
Information that a user physically enters into a computer through some key or button
What is an output?
A tool that delivers data from machine to user (monitor)
OR
Information that a computer returns to a user such as images on a screen, sounds from a speaker, and printed pages
What is processing?
The operations performed by a computer to retrieve, transform, or classify information
What is storage?
The saving of information on memory chips, discs, or other storage media by a computer for later use
What is Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine and what was it used for?
An early computing machine that used punched cards and metal pins. It was used to compile the 1890 US census.
What is a transistor?
A smaller, faster, cheaper, and more durable electronic device that replaced mechanical relays, which were slow and tended to wear down over time.
What is a microchip and what was its biggest achievement?
An electronic device that allowed entire computers to be built into a single board, replacing modules for each part of the computer. Microchips paved the way for personal computer ownership.
What is WWW?
The World Wide Web. A system for making digital resources publicly available over the internet using a web browser that paved the way for email, chatrooms, and social media sites.
What is a smartphone?
A mobile phone that functions as a computer and allows users to access the internet
What are supercomputers and what’s their importance?
The fastest, most powerful computers that exist at a given time. These computers have processing capabilities designed to solve problems that are too complex for regular computers. They play vital roles in the advancement of national defense, science, and social change
What is the decimal system?
A numbering system that uses ten digits, 0-9
What is the binary system?
A numbering system that uses two digits, 0 and 1
What is the hexadecimal system?
A numbering system that uses sixteen digits, 0-9 and A-F
What is a bit?
The smallest unit of digital information, represented by a 1 or 0 in a binary sequence
What is a byte?
A group of eight bits joined together. The value of a single byte can range from 0 (eight 0s) to 255 (eight 1s)
What is digital data?
A physical signal, such as test, numbers, graphics, or sound, interpreted by converting it into binary numbers
What are encoded integers?
The representation of integers using a group of bytes. Normally, one bit in one of the bytes represents the sign, 1 for negative and 0 for positive. The remaining 31 bits are used to encode the number itself using binary digits
What is encoded text?
The representation of text by assigning a unique binary code to each character
What is processor speed?
The speed at which a computer processes information, as measured by the number of cycles per second (Hertz) that the computer’s CPU operates at
Processor speed is measured in kilohertz, megahertz, and gigahertz
