Mental Model

An explanation of someone’s thought process about how something works in the real world.

Match designs to the users’ existing mental models

This enables them to easily transfer their knowledge from one product or experience to another, without the need to first take the time to understand how the new system works.

Meet users’ expectations. Subvert them at your peril.

Take ecommerce websites, which use consistent patterns and conventions such product cards, virtual carts and checkout flows in order to conform to users’ expectations. Radically redesigning these elements or removing these concepts altogether for the sake of novelty runs the risk of alienating users.

Understand how your users think

Shrinking the gap between our own mental models and those of the users is one of the biggest challenges as a UX designer. To achieve this goal we use a variety of user research methods such as user interviews, personas, journey maps and empathy maps.

cognitive-psychologyusability

Origin

The term ‘mental model’ is believed to have originated in the 1943 book The Nature of Explanation by Kenneth Craik. Since this time, there has been much discussion and use of the idea in human–computer interaction and usability.