User-Centered Design
When going through our daily lives, we encounter a large variety of situations with different objects and people involved. During these moments, our minds expect things to work in specific ways, usually without us realizing why. This is where the idea of mental models comes into play.
What are Mental Models?
Mental models are how our brains understand the way the world works. They are simple explanations, heuristics, that give us decent expectations of how a system should work. Mental models are not perfect, but they allow us to predict outcomes reasonably enough to have a profound impact.
James Clear, in his article Mental Models: Learn How to Think Better and Gain a Mental Edge, explains, “Mental models are imperfect, but useful. There is no single mental model from physics or engineering, for example, that provides a flawless explanation of the entire universe, but the best mental models from those disciplines have allowed us to build bridges and roads, develop new technologies, and even travel to outer space.”
Whatever system we interact with, we have varying levels of mental models that guide us through. Therefore, user-centered designs need take careful notice.
Mental Models in User-Centered Design
Knowing that people have these simple understandings of the world that help us make decisions has crucial implications for user-centered design. Creating products based around users requires meeting their mental models where they are.
Users have built up a repertoire of mental models from life experience. For example, younger generations who grew up surrounded by technology have an expansive collection of mental models that older generations don’t. The common patterns, symbolism, and meanings are so deeply ingrained and understood that they don’t even notice them. It isn’t until maybe they have to help an older relative figure out a piece of technology that they directly acknowledge and question their second nature.
A great example of this disparity in mental models comes from a YouTube user named Razbuten. He uploaded a video titled What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn’t Play Games in which he had his wife, the titular person who doesn’t play games, attempt a variety of video game genres. By doing this, Razbuten and his viewers realized the vast amount of subconscious mental models they had. Watching his wife struggle at what seemed like basic video game actions exposed the bias they had gained from years of experience. At the same time, Razbuten’s wife had novel ideas for actions and concepts that most players wouldn’t, simply because she did not have the mental models to tell her they aren’t possible.
Thus, video games are examples of designs that assume users have prior knowledge and understanding. For other types of design like website UI and UX, it is important to both appeal to experienced users with consistent elements, but also help inexperienced users create accurate mental models. As Megan Chan says in her Nielsen/Norman Group article, “A prime goal for designers is to ensure that the user interface clearly communicates the nature of the system so that users form accurate (and thus useful) mental models.”
When a part of a product indicates one action but does something different, it contradicts the mental model and disrupts usability. To create designs centered around users , it is important to understand these existing expectations and build accordingly. When people visit the site or use the product for the first time, they won’t be completely lost because the fundamental functions are familiar.
