computer science

See What You Print

See What You Print is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand See What You Print rather than just read about it. In short: SWYP (See What You Print) is a printer concept developed by technology product design firm Artefact. The concept was released in 2011.

Key takeaways

See What You Print belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect See What You Print to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of See What You Print from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

SWYP (See What You Print) is a printer concept developed by technology product design firm Artefact. The concept was released in 2011. It features simplified interactions and a touch screen that shows the user exactly what the print output will be.

Awards The SWYP concept was the recipient of two industry awards. It received a Braun Prize Silver Award in 2012. It also received an IXDA Interaction Award for disruptive interaction design.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with See What You Print

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what See What You Print claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to See What You Print before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about See What You Print ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of See What You Print

In research: See What You Print appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses See What You Print in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: See What You Print is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computer hardware stubs, Innovation, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for See What You Print outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study See What You Print in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what See What You Print means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain See What You Print out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is See What You Print in simple terms?

SWYP (See What You Print) is a printer concept developed by technology product design firm Artefact. The concept was released in 2011.

Why does See What You Print matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study See What You Print?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on See What You Print.