The Jobs to Be Done Playbook by Jim Kalbach

Author:Jim Kalbach
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Rosenfeld Media
Published: 2020-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

Related Approach: Web Navigation Design

The term mental model refers to someone’s thought process about how the world works—their frame of reality. Mental models allow you to predict how things work. They are cognitive constructs built on beliefs, assumptions, and past experiences.

The mental model the person has of the system is framed by that system. If you explore their mental model independent of a solution, then you can break out of the system frame. You can discover aspects of how a person thinks that have nothing to do with the system, but everything to do with how that person accomplishes their intent.

Author and UX researcher Indi Young has developed a specific approach for mapping mental models.10 Her diagramming technique seeks to understand and visualize people’s intent and purpose in a given domain. These models can be directly used to derive a website navigation that best matches the understanding of the website a user might have.

The hierarchical nature of mental model diagrams makes them particularly relevant for the practice of information architecture. The process can be described as grounded: a bottom-up approach starting with summaries of how people describe their reasoning, reactions, and guiding principles. Then it’s a matter of successively grouping information into higher level categories.

Figure 5.6 shows just one section of a mental model diagram—this shows the job of seeing a movie at the cinema. It reflects a hierarchy of goals and intent.

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