Mental Models. Indi Young

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      Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior

      By Indi Young

      Rosenfeld Media, LLC

      705 Carroll Street, #2L

      Brooklyn, New York

      11215 USA

      On the web: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com

      Please send errors to: [email protected]

      Publisher: Louis Rosenfeld

      Editor: Karen Whitehouse

      Production Editor: Liz Danzico

      Proofreader: Mary Jean Babic

      Interior Design: Allison Cecil

      Cover Design: Jason Kernevich

      © 2008 Rosenfeld Media, LLC

      All Rights Reserved

      ISBN 1-933820-06-3

      ISBN-13 9 781933 820064

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2007930707

      Printed and bound in the United States of America

      This book is dedicated to my father, Evert Hale Young, Jr. His “can do” approach laid the perspective for my entire life.

      How to Use this Book

      Necessity is the mother of invention. Historically, tool design—from a sharpened stone ax to a folding Japanese pruning saw—has been inspired by need. The designers themselves range from seemingly isolated genius inventors to cubicle farms of engineers with explicit specification documents. Really successful design—that which solves the problem, is easy to use, and is beautiful to behold while functioning—is hit and miss. Innovation is elusive. Lots of money and hope are put towards products that look encouraging at the outset, but end up not quite reaching the mark. Entrepreneurs, investors, designers, engineers, and customers all get burned more often than they succeed.

      There is no one method to follow to create perfect products. But there are many ways to increase the odds. One of them is to understand the reason for the tool in the first place. Deeply investigate what people are trying to get done and line up your solutions to match. Are you trying to solve a small part of a larger puzzle that could be simplified if you look at a broader context of the customer’s behavior and philosophies? Do you have so many aspects to your service that it’s hard to prioritize where to invest more development dollars?

      As first a software engineer and then as a specialist in web applications, I had been doing this broad sort of task analysis for many years before I came up with a way to draw a picture of it all—a mental model, which is an affinity diagram of user behaviors surrounding a particular topic. (See “What is an Affinity Diagram?” in Chapter 1; and see Appendix B (

http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/content/appendix_b) for the story of how the technique evolved.) Mental models help me illustrate a profound understanding of the user, align solutions to areas that make a difference, and chart my way through a decade of development. When people saw the first diagrams, they encouraged me to share them in print. Seven years later, I can finally give you this book.

      Who Should Read this Book?

      Depending on your role, you might be interested in reading certain chapters first. I anticipate that a lot of you will be practitioners actually creating mental models. I also hope that many of you are responsible for product strategy—directors and executives—and are interested in how mental models can help guide your decisions. For those of you who are project managers and team managers within large organizations, I have included information about how to run a mental model project successfully as a part of a network of other research and design projects. And for all of you who need to persuade key people in your business to cultivate a better understanding of the people who use your products, I am listing key chapters to reference.

      Product Strategists & Executives:

      Chapter 1: What and Why? The Advantages of a Mental Model

      Chapter 12: Alignment and Gap Analysis

      Team Managers:

      Chapter 2: When? Using Mental Models with Your Other Work

      Chapter 3: Who? Mental Model Team Participants

      Evangelists:

      Chapter 1: What and Why? The Advantages of a Mental Model

      Chapter 12: Alignment and Gap Analysis

      Project Managers:

      Appendix A: How Much Time and Money?Available on the book site at

http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/content/appendix_a.

      Practitioners:

      Chapter 4: Define Task-Based Audience Segments

      Chapter 5: Specify Recruiting Details

      Chapter 6: Set Scope for the Interviews

      Chapter 7: Interview Participants

      Chapter 8: Analyze the Transcripts

      Chapter 9: Look for Patterns

      Chapter 10: Create the Mental Model

      Chapter 11: Adjust the Audience Segments

      Chapter 12: Alignment and Gap Analysis

      Chapter 13: Structure Derivation

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