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Mental Models

Aligning design strategy with human behavior

Mental Models

Benefits & Roadblocks to the Mental Model Process

This summer, I asked a group of 22 people who have created mental models what they thought the benefits of the process were. I was also interested in the difficulties they ran into during creation and use of the models. I analyzed all their responses and summarized the results.

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

Comments

Hi Indy,

Thanks for sharing. Have you experienced a way to clearly define scope on projects, and do you believe mental models can be helpful to do that?

Defining scope is always a slippery thing. In my experience, the scope is initially defined by the thing a team wants to do, and once we start exploring audience segments, it gets additional little ideas added to it. At this point the scope is often distorted by all these extra bumps added on, so I do a half hour workshop with the team to state the scope in one sentence. "How people decide what to order at quick serve restaurants." "How people live with their own health and the health of a loved one." "How people train for a marathon."

The other problem with scope is its granularity. Sometimes it gets defined at too high a level. "How people buy things at Home Depot." Behaviors could range from buying a washing machine, to landscaping a garden, to remodeling a bathroom. A better scope would be "How people buy appliances," or "How people remodel a bathroom."

Mental models represent one scope. There can be a few mental models within that one scope which represent a different audience segment each. But you really do need to nail down your scope before you can come up with a mental model that will be helpful.

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