31. People Create Mental Models

What is a mental model?
1. represents a person's thought process for how something works
  1. based off of incomplete facts
  2. past experiences
  3. intuitive perceptions
Mental Models in Design
1. representing something a person has in mind
2. understand your target audience
3. People make mental models fairly quickly
  1. people refer mental models to predict what a product/service/software will do or what they should do with it
Ex. Imagine a cell phone. Your mental model may be:
1. iPhone
2. Samsung Android
3. Flip phone
Takeaways
1. people will always have a mental model
2. mental models come from past experiences
3. not everyone has the same mental model
4. it's important to research your audience to understand their mental models

Resource summary

	Created by Brittany Scott about 4 years ago