Mental vs. Conceptual Models

A mental model is an explanation of how something works. It is an overarching term for any sort of concept, framework, or worldview that you carry around in your mind. Mental models help you understand life by simplifying complex systems into understandable concepts based on your personal experiences and knowledge.

In the context of UX, mental models refer to what users believe about a system, such as a website or application. These models influence how users predict the system will work and guide their interactions with the interface. For example, users might expect that clicking on a shopping cart icon will take them to a review of their selected items, a common mental model based on frequent online shopping experiences.^[1]

Mental models are built from the knowledge and experiences that people accumulate over time, guiding how they interact with the world and, by extension, user interfaces. Jakob's Law tells us that users often apply familiar experiences from other websites to new ones, expecting similar functionality and layout. For instance, if someone frequently shops online, they'll likely expect to find a shopping cart icon in the top right corner of any e-commerce site. This expectation is part of their mental model for shopping websites, shaped by prior experiences.

In UX design, the challenge is to either align your interface with these pre-existing mental models or to help users develop new, accurate models through clear and intuitive design. For example, if introducing an innovative feature that deviates from common conventions, it should be introduced in a way that's easy for users to understand and adopt.

Mental models are deeply personal constructs shaped by our upbringing, past experiences, cultural background, and education. They help us navigate the world by simplifying complex realities into understandable frameworks. However, because everyone's experiences are unique, mental models vary widely from person to person. This variation often affects how people perceive and interact with the same system or situation.

This diversity in mental models can pose significant challenges in UX design. Designers might assume that certain features are clear and easy to use, while users with different backgrounds may struggle with these same features. As users interact with systems and gain new experiences, their mental models evolve. It means that designers should continuously seek feedback and adapt their designs accordingly.^[2]

A conceptual model is essentially a high-level overview of how a system is structured and functions. It serves as a blueprint, detailing the key concepts users interact with, the tasks they can perform, and how everything connects within the system. This model helps users form a mental picture of how to navigate and use the system effectively.

For example, if designing a digital calendar app, its conceptual model might include:

• Design metaphors like a physical wall calendar to make the digital interface intuitive
• Concepts such as events or appointments with attributes like time, date, and notifications, and actions like create, edit, and delete
• Relationships showing how recurring events are linked to their original entries
• Mappings that align these concepts with tasks users typically perform with a calendar, such as scheduling and reminders

As a designer, your goal is to ensure that the models users create align closely with the intended design. This enhances overall user satisfaction and effectiveness.^[3]

Building a good conceptual model often involves aligning the design closely with users' mental models, particularly when those models are common among most users. This approach ensures the design feels intuitive and reduces the learning curve, as it matches the pre-existing expectations users bring to the interaction. For instance, if users consistently search for a login button at the top right of a webpage but it's located at the bottom, moving the login button to where users expect to find it would conform to the widespread mental model and improve usability. This adaptation respects the inertia in users’ mental models — people's tendency to stick with what they know, even if it's not the most efficient method.

One effective way to build a good conceptual model is to connect new concepts to ones that are already familiar to users. This approach helps people comfortably adjust to new technologies by tapping into what they already know. For example, when touchscreens first became popular, many used on-screen icons that looked like physical buttons and sliders.

This design choice helped users quickly grasp how to interact with the new touchscreen technology by drawing on their experience with traditional electronic interfaces. Users easily understood that swiping a virtual slider adjusted settings, just like a real slider would, and that tapping an icon worked like pressing a physical button.

By using these familiar visuals and interactions, designers made the advanced technology of touchscreens more user-friendly and easier to understand.

One key method to build a good conceptual model is to use terminology that is familiar and consistent throughout the interface. This ensures that users can quickly understand and interact with your product without confusion. For example, if you have an e-commerce platform that refers to the shopping cart as "Cart" on one page, it should be referred to as "Cart" across all other pages, not "Basket" or "Trolley." This consistency in language helps prevent confusion and allows users to navigate the site more fluidly.

Using well-understood and uniform terminology throughout the interface not only makes the platform more user-friendly but also reinforces user familiarity and comfort with the product. This approach minimizes learning time and reduces the cognitive load on users, enhancing their overall experience with your platform.

One method for building a good conceptual model is to educate users about new models through effective onboarding and marketing. This approach helps realign users' mental models by clearly demonstrating how the product should be used.

Here are some effective tools to accomplish this:

• Manuals: Provide comprehensive details about features but should be easy to navigate. Not all users will read them, but they're essential for those who do.
• Product tours: Offer a step-by-step walkthrough when users first engage with the product, highlighting key features and functionalities.
• Contextual tips: Appear just when users need them, offering hints or help related to the task at hand without overwhelming or interrupting the user experience.
• Support chat: Allows users to ask questions in real-time, offering personalized assistance and guidance.
• Video tutorials: Visually demonstrate how to use features, which can be especially helpful for complex tasks.
• FAQ sections: Quickly address common questions or problems, enabling users to find answers independently.

Tutorials and an accessible knowledge base are useful, but the key is to make learning intuitive and integrated. By using these methods, you can help users understand and adapt to new conceptual models more easily, ensuring the feature is both useful and user-friendly.^[4]

One effective method for building a good conceptual model is to incorporate perceived affordances into the design. This involves using visual cues to suggest how an object should be used, making the interface immediately understandable and intuitive. Take, for example, a digital music player on a smartphone. By designing the play button as a right-pointing triangle, it naturally suggests its function to start the music, mirroring the universal symbol for "play" on traditional media players.

Similarly, a slider with a knob might be used to adjust volume, its design mimicking physical volume controls, indicating that it can be moved left or right to change the sound level. These perceived affordances leverage our subconscious recognition of how objects work in the real world.

Introducing a new conceptual model to users is a journey that often doesn’t happen overnight. It requires careful planning and a gradual approach to change. As creatures of habit, people generally resist abrupt innovations, which can feel traumatic or disruptive. Therefore, making changes feel like gentle improvements on the past can be more effective. Take, for example, the release of Google Glass in 2012. It was a pioneering technology that introduced the concept of wearable computers. Although it did not become a mainstream success, it played a crucial role in shifting public perception and preparing users for future technologies in this space.^[5]

In both cases, the key is to have a clear end goal but to implement it in stages that consider the existing mental models of users. By doing so, innovators can gently guide the public toward embracing new concepts without causing a backlash. This long-term approach acknowledges the time it takes for significant changes to be accepted and integrated into everyday life.