A Practical Application of Mental Models

William Hudson of Syntagm took the UPA UK meeting in London last week through models, metaphors and how they can support usability work.

Having run through the theory of models and the difference between mental models, generic, and the conceptual models that people carry of how things function, Hudson went on to give an example of language fostering an inappropriate model. He asked the audience what they understood an 'expiry date' to be. Most identified credit cards and food as having expiry dates and the behaviour associated with it to be to throw the thing away.

Then he showed how security certificates on some email systems also use 'expiry' to describe the ending of currency for a particular certificate, but although the certificate needs renewing after this date, if you delete (throw out) your certificate, it becomes impossible to read email encrypted using that certificate.

Exploring models as a tool, he said that using them:
* provides opportunities for clarification and simplification,
* defines concepts and terms for the user interface,
* provides a framework for implementation,
* forms a basis for an object-orientated style of development, and
* controls 'feature bloat'.

He said this kind of analysis should feature very early in the design process, after fieldwork but before any construction of prototypes. It helps to avoid building in inappropriate models like the example above.

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