[Sigia-l] Conceptual models (again): metaphors or categories?

[Christopher Fahey [askrom]]

I think we can make a valuable distinction between the kinds of mental
models users have *before* they come to a site and the kinds of mental
models that users form *after* experiencing the site for a few minutes.
Ziya referred to this as "predicting" and "shaping" the mental model.

The predictive mental model is where a site's structure is built based
on an understanding of what organizational system the target user(s) are
likely to have, a "pre-existing condition" if you will. For example, it
is typical in sports magazines to group "College Basketball" under
"College Sports" instead of under "Basketball". Some user research into
sports fans could quickly reveal this pre-existing mental model,
allowing the IA to make the site mirror this mental model.

The "shaping" approach is where the site's structure obliges users to
adapt themselves to the structure. This is useful for when the site does
not lend itself to a pre-existing organizational system. For a site I
did the IA for last year, http://www.xmradio.com, some significant
marketing research and customer interviews revealed two main kinds of
likely site users: "New Music Fans" and "Gadget Freaks". Both groups had
another trait in common: they had no idea what XM Radio really was or
how to get it. We organized the site into three main groups
corresponding to what were by far the three biggest questions all
customers had: "What is XM Radio?", "How do I get it?", "What's the
content like"? This is certainly an artificial way to sort the pages on
our site (there is no pre-existing mental model for "Satellite Radio
Marketing Material"), but based on our understanding of the users we
interviewed and based on the site's marketing goals, we figured that
users could quickly adapt to the understanding that their main
objectives can be found under one of these three main nav options. After
merely seeing those three options at the top of the page, the user (we
hope) will have formed a kind of mental model of where their answers
might lie.

-Cf

[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com