Product & design · Research & reasoning · Writing & communication
Mental model.
A person’s working understanding of how something behaves, used to explain it and predict what happens next.
Useful when people’s expectations differ from a system’s behavior.
“Explain the user’s likely mental model of archiving, then check whether this interface matches it.”
A closer look
People rely on simplified beliefs about systems rather than complete internal knowledge. Someone may expect archiving to hide a document without deleting it. That belief shapes how they interpret controls, whether or not it matches the implementation.
Put it to work
“Use interview observations to describe how new users believe sharing permissions work.”
A useful distinction
A mental model describes a person’s understanding. It is not necessarily an accurate diagram of the system’s implementation.