Are you a product designer who wants to learn mental models in product design? If so, here is an explanation of the mental model according to miklos philips.
In developing a product, whether it’s innovating a new product or optimizing an existing one, you need to increase the knowledge regarding the users of your product.
People know how your product works and how to use it before you even design it.”
When designers want to create interesting and original products, people will always use new products and features based on what they have used before. Within the scope of user experience (ux), this is called a mental model. With this mental model, designers must design products according to user expectations.
According to the Nielsen Norman Group Mental Models Are Base on Beliefs
A person’s brain develops mental models through habits in using current products. Start with habits when you use the system regularly, such as websites, apps, and learn about how the system works.
People will transfer the expectations they have built up from one product they are familiar with to another that looks similar.
It’s not uncommon to see young children spending more time interacting with touch screen devices than books or regular television. When they Ghana Mobile Number List try to swipe up a flat screen tv or a book, then to their surprise nothing changes when they swipe their finger, they have built an expectation (mental model) based on their habit of using the touch screen device. The mental model of swiping is a way of getting a response when operating on any rectangular object. This happens because they already know how objects work before.
People Have Unique Mental Models That Are Generally Shape
To align the design with the user’s mental model the design process must incorporate the user’s ‘habit’ of how the product works. This is very important as part of the ux research method used to uncover user needs and pain points.
Correcting the user’s misaligned mental model
Mental models that are not Country List aligned between users and designers can cause usability problems because the product does not match user expectations and existing user knowledge. Users have expectations and mental models that are based on previous experiences when using a particular product. Unexpected changes to ux or ui can cause confusion or even frustration. This could have an impact on the product company.
