Models and Theories in Human-Computer Interaction/What is Mental Models?

What is Mental Models? (CheeKang Tan)

Mental model represent people's though of process about the logic to interact with real world in life. It refer to each individual's unique life experience, perception, and their view of world. We study mental model to conclude theory that can be used to analyze, make conclusion, systematize base on individual behaviors. This will help human develop mechanisms more advance and improve in management and natural resources.

Our mental models allows us to make assumption about how things works, and the thinking help us make instantaneous decision and behavior. In computer, we understand how the application or system works through learning and using it. By time, we think of what will be the expected situation and get familiar with the system or application from interacting with the computer. It also help us develop a better system conceptual model, that increase motivation, simpler complexity, better performance in accuracy, efficiency and problem solving skill. A mental models is what the user belief, each individual users have their own mental model, different user have their own unique mental models of the same user interface. Therefore, it is important for a developer or designer to make a user interface basic nature enough to communicate with users that form an accurate metal model.