When we design something, the process requires that we completely understand what a person wants to get done. Empathy with a person is something that differs from studying how a person uses something. Empathy helps us become aware of what the person wants to accomplish regardless whether she is aware of the thing we are designing. 

"Using a term from cognitive science, a mental model is an internal representation of something in the real world - the sum total of what a person believes about the situation or object at hand, how it functions, and how it’s organized."  (Erika Hall)

When we use the term “intuitive” in design we think about “matching the user’s mental model”. The closer an interface fits that image, the easier it will be to learn, use, and navigate it. 

Empathizing with our users and documenting their mental model allows us not just to get inside their head but get the inside of their head out of our head for everyone else to see. Mental models represent what a person is trying to accomplish in a larger context, no matter which tools they are using. 

According to I. Young there are two types of mental models. The first one refers to the type each of us holds in our head to help us deal with the world, and the other one is used by designers to sketch out to better create that world. For maximum success, we should be aware of the former and get to work on the latter. When designing an application or a website, we need to think about mental models of activities or needs we want to support.

Mental Models give us a deep understanding of people’s motivations and thought-processes, along with the emotional and philosophical landscape in which they are operating. (Indie Young)

A mental model is a very powerful tool that can help us in many areas we are dealing with:

• It can guide the design of the solution we are working on. 

A mental model diagram is a visual language and its text is the data. Its grammar is the vertical and horizontal alignments of concepts. It represents the entirety of each audience segment’s environment and depicts where one segment’s experience ends and where the next one begins. It might be used to derive design decisions and give confidence in our design.

• It can help us, and our team in making good user and business decisions.

We can use a mental model diagram to collaborate with our team, prioritize features, better organize information, and identify areas where users have needs that aren’t being served. A mental model diagram can help resolve issues that arise if different user types have widely divergent mental models, or if the actual design of the system is significantly different from the one that was originally proposed. It can give us clarity in direction. 

• It can act as a roadmap, ensuring continuity of vision.

A mental model with features or concepts aligned beneath it, becomes a roadmap for strategy over the next decade. User mental models change slowly and we can rely on them for many years to come. It can give continuity to our strategy.

Mental models can be used to design:

•      Digital products, such as internet applications
•      Physical products with interactive functions, such as watch
•      Location-aware products, such as a phone
•      Methodologies, such as project management
•      Information delivery, such as monthly statement
•      Physical spaces for providing services, such as library
•      Browsable datasets, such as knowledge bases
•      Platform-specific networked applications
•      Services, online media, online stores and so on...

Mental models are built from tasks combed from a set of interview transcripts and made up of three levels:

• mental spaces
• towers 
• tasks

The diagram looks like a city skyline, mental spaces form the blocks, towers form the buildings, and tasks form the windows in the buildings. While we build the diagram from the lowest level to the highest level, we read it in reverse. 

We start to read a mental model by looking at the mental spaces and understanding the differences between them. Each mental space should be read separately, as each stand on its own, not necessarily related to mental spaces to the left or right. There may be a slightly chronological order to a few of the mental spaces, but largely they are listed in clumps. 

The next step is to study the towers within each mental space and understand the differences by reading the task examples within them. In this stage, we should try to understand what people focus on when accomplishing the goals in this particular mental space.

We can use the name “Mental Model” whether the diagram shows just the towers above the horizontal line or it includes the features aligned beneath the towers as well. 

Mental models are used to align existing and planned product needs or features beneath concepts that people mentioned in towers. Related to my 3rd project work “Feasibility analysis for the website relaunch of the Association for Contemporary Art Rotor”, my intention, according to the objectives of my research was to identify content concepts by analyzing tasks defined in towers in order to define objects for the client domain model for the website relaunch.

The content concepts defined in the lower half of mental model diagrams were used to define a conceptual model of my client’s (Association for Contemporary art Rotor), subject domain. 

Sources:

Young, I. (2015). Practical Emphaty. Rosenfeld Media.

Hall, E. (2013). Just Enough Research. A Book Apart, New York