Mental Models Flashcards
What is a mental model?
Designing something requires that you completely understand what a person wants to get done. Empathy with a person is distinct from studying how a person uses something. Empathy extends to knowing what the person wants to accomplish regardless of whether she has or is aware of the thing you are designing. You need to know the person’s goals and what procedure and philosophy she follows to accomplish them. Mental models give you a deep understanding of people’s motivations and thought processes, along with the emotional and philosophical landscape in which they are operating.
The top part of the model is a visual depiction of the behavior of a particular audience, representing root motivations. The bottom part of the model shows various ways of supporting matching behaviors.
Where support and behavior are aligned, you have a solution. Where a behavior is not supported, you have an opportunity to explore further.
A mental model consists of several sections, with groups within each section. Mental models are simply affinity diagrams of behaviors made from ethnographic data gathered from audience representatives.
Where support and behavior are aligned, you have a solution. Where a behavior is not supported, you have an opportunity to explore further.
What if I don’t have a big budget?
If your organization already conducts usability tests with some regularity piggyback short interviews on top of each session. Ask the participant to stay with you for an hour, and spend half the time on the usability test and half on conducting a non-leading interview
What do you mean by “task”?
The word “Task” is used loosely. The word “task” can mean actions, thoughts, feelings, and motivations - everything that comes up when a person accomplishes something, sets something in motion, or achieves a certain state.
What are task-based audience segments?
Task-based audience segments are groups of people who do similar things.
While personality types do touch upon behavior, generative research for building mental models requires that you select from groups of people who want to get different things done. Because you will want to tailor your end solutions to fit each audience exactly, grouping audiences by the difference in behavior is important. You want to end up with solutions that match behaviors and philosophies closely rather than with on solution that fits several audiences loosely. Figure out what people want to accomplish, look for differences, and group accordingly.
How do I uncover the root task?
During analysis, you are required to interpret a little. This is the “art” to the process. You will find it easier if you ask yourself, “What is this person really trying to do?” The idea is to simplify to the “root” task.
What do you mean by a content map’s “content”?
Let me assure you that the name “content” does not limit your map to text documents. Your content map should include all the ways you service people, including things like monthly account statements or yearly awards banquets, registration for training courses, or a mortgage calculator.
Does a content map show every detail of my solution?
It includes all functionality that exists or is intended for your solution.
How can analyzing gaps in a mental model show me innovative ideas?
The first thing to look at is the obvious gaps where there is an absence of content items. Your hope is that you can find a gap that you can fill easily. Then look for scarcity of content items. Think about where you can flesh out things a bit. Look for opportunities to redefine, combine, or augment existing content.
How can mental models help me make sense of all my web properties?
Each one of your web properties is a building on your internet campus. Each property has its own unique navigation that represents the mental model of the people populating it.
What is an Affinity Diagram?
Affinity diaframs, in the simplest interpretation, show groups of related things.
You can make an affinity diagram out of your grocery list. Some items, like milk and eggs, might be found near each other in your store. Other items, like pasta sauce and spaghetti are elements of single meal you’re planning.
How does Mental Model and Affinity Diagram similar?
A mental model, in essence, an affinity diagram of user behaviors. The towers in the diagrams represent group names for the behaviors within. The sets of towers represent a high-level group of behaviors.
How do you create a mental model?
To create a mental model, you talk to people about what they’re doing, look for patterns,and organize those patterns from the bottom up into a model. From the field research, you will glean maybe 60 or 120 behaviors per person. Over time you see the same behaviors and you group them together. You line them up in towers; then line up the towers into groups that represent different cognitive spaces. It starts to look like a city skyline.
Once you have created the top half of the diagram, you focus on the lower half. Take the product features that you intend to create and align them beneath all the towers they support. In other words, you align the features that your business values beneath concepts that people mentioned. When you have finished, you will see areas of the mental model that are less supported then others. and you may have leftover functions that don’t support anything in the mental model.
The resulting diagram tells a story about the viability of your business strategy for a particular solution.
