Benefits

Respondents to the summer survey said they used the mental model to: (in order of most frequently mentioned)

• Understand the Users' World
• Develop Concepts Clearly as a Team
• Recognize Opportunities and Deficiencies in the Solution They Were Making
• Communicate with Executives and Stakeholders
• Have Confidence the Design Will Be Better
• Derive Top Level Navigation
• Focus on Tasks Rather than Content, Roles, Demographics
• Guide Strategic Thinking About the Solution
• Use As a Touch Point to Stay on Track
• Gather Real-World Language for Nomenclature
• See All the Places Where Content Matches Tasks
• Visualize Complex Task Groups
• Reveal Assumptions the Team Was Making
• Improve Customer Experience
• Base Test Scenarios on Tasks

Roadblocks

For the readers of this blog, it might be more interesting to read what roadblocks were reported. I will certainly use this list to make sure I cover all the topics in the book. Feel free to add your own.

• Educating Stakeholders about Benefits is a Challenge
• Need Guidance for How to Use the Model
• Combing Transcripts & Organizing Data Requires Focus
• Amount of Data is Overwhelming
• Takes a Long Time to Create
• Small Sample Size Does Not Sit Well
• Keeping Team On Board is a Challenge
• Analysis, Slotting Content, Decision Making with Team is Difficult
• Need to Define Scope First for Success
• It Requires Strong Leadership and a Stable Organization
• Need to Consider Other Things Than Tasks When Designing
• Using Mental Model for Visionary Work Seems Unlikely
• Implementing Recommended Changes is Difficult
• Cumbersome to Present
• The Part of Synthesis that is Magic/Art is Not Trusted
• Transcribing During Interviews is a Challenge
• Recruiting is a Challenge
• Deriving Top Level Navigation Seems Too Rigid