31. People Create Mental Models

Imagine that you’ve never seen an iPad, but I’ve just handed you one and told you that you can read books on it. Before you turn on the iPad, before you use it, you have a model in your head of what reading a book on the iPad will be like. You have assumptions about what the book will look like on the screen, what things you will be able to do, and how you will do them—things like turning a page, or using a bookmark. You have a mental model of reading a book on the iPad, even if you’ve never done it before.

What that mental model in your head looks and acts like depends on many things. If you’ve used an iPad before, your mental model of reading a book on an iPad will be different than that of someone who has never ...

Get 100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.