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Google Tech Talks
July, 16 2008
ABSTRACT
Many of the applications you develop are
applications you would use. This makes it
easy to know what will work and what won't.
At some point, however, you'll find yourself
developing something that you would only
occasionally use, and suddenly you're
treading in dark places. You know user
research is important, you know the
experience of using the product should be
positive, if not delightful. But sometimes
the findings you get are pretty difficult to
translate into a decision about the software.
Mental models are diagrams that represent the
underlying philosophies and emotions that
drive people's behavior, matched up with the
ways you think you can support them with your
software. Rather than knowing "I like to go
to movies alone," you'll learn the myriad
reasons why. (E.g. "I like to give the
director the attention and respect he
deserves, because when I wrote a play in
college, people didn't pay attention very
well, they didn't get the point, and I felt
frustrated.") Knowing the motivating
philosophy opens up different avenues for
supporting the behavior. You could, for
example, offer additional means for this type
of moviegoer to "get the point" of the movie.
Mental models are useful as structures for
attaching these ideas to sets of philosophies
and for generating new ideas in places where
there are gaps.
In this presentation, author Indi Young will
introduce you to mental models and show you
one that was developed at Google for the
Analytics product. Indi will show you how to
use the mental model to expand your
perspective and create applications that
reach beyond the basic requirements.
Speaker: Indi Young
Indi's work spans a number of decades, from
the mid-80's when the desktop metaphor was
replacing command line and menu-based
systems, to the mid-90's when the Web first
toddled onto the scene, to now, when
designers are intent on crafting good
experiences. After 10 years of consulting,
Indi helped found Adaptive Path with six
other partners, all hoping to spread good
design around the world, making things easier
for people everywhere. Indi's mental models
have helped both start-ups and large
corporations discover and support customer
behaviors they didn't think to explore at
first. She has written a book about the
mental model method, Mental Models - Aligning
design strategy with human behavior,
published by Rosenfeld Media.
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