Why is Following Users’ Mental Models Essential for Intuitive and User-Friendly Design?

The user’s mental models are the individuals’ assumptions about how the user experience works. Users develop mental models in their minds based on their prior experiences when they were using various products, websites, and applications. These form expectations in their brains to improve their daily lives.

This psychological concept is related to Jakob’s law.

Jakob’s law states that “Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.”

We can understand that:

People intend to get a smooth user experience so they follow the same process when they find similar websites.People feel familiarity is important because of which they can complete their tasks faster rather than learning a new model.

Designers can implement common design patterns in a few strategic areas such as page structure, navigation, workflows, etc.

Real time example

Add to cart 🛒 purpose was to match a physical shopping experience to consumers’ mental models of shopping online. An item is added to a cart by a customer. They continue to shop, adding and discarding products without paying for them. They then check out and make the necessary payments.

Create an exact copy?

Its true people may wonder, having similar digital spaces might be monotonous. But if the conventional location of the navigation bar is set on a different side by not following the mental model then the users cannot depend on their past experiences and would have to newly learn the functionality of the app. Try answering this question- ‘Will the user be focused on completing the task of buying a product or will he be learning the function of the app?’ According to his set priorities, he will be intended to fulfill his purchase decision.

So creating something completely new might lead to these difficulties, however, to experiment with creating new experiences, it is necessary to conduct usability testing which will allow us to let know how the user is feeling while using our app and dive into user research before implementing those changes.

Why not following a mental model is an unintuitive design?

People who buy online will also behave the same way how they behave in physical stores. I can relate it to an illustration demonstrated in my digital marketing class. In a clothing store, if a consumer asks the salesman about the return policy, the salesman addresses his query on the spot.

If the consumer with the same mindset asks a question in the chatbot then it should connect with the agent and answer the question immediately to avoid frustrations else it might lead to an unintuitive design if it says ‘we will answer in a few hours.’

Wrapping up

Understanding UX mental models and how to apply them can help designers create designs that make sense to people and create an intuitive, straightforward experience. The user research and testing should align with the mental models.

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Why is Following Users’ Mental Models Essential for Intuitive and User-Friendly Design? was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.