Mental Models

What Hacker News says

1. andy_pppJan 2024
   Customers should inform you about problems they need solving, not how the problem will be solved by your software. It is your job to propose solutions (and this is often best done with a super simple prototype, not even in real software). They can feed back on your solution and it might be that 10% of users love your solution but there is a better solution out there for 90% of users. Implement the simplest of them and see if users want to use them.

   When people can't even make features that make sense to users, generating ideas to go in the backlog is a terrible idea.

   If you want to understand your users problems and how your product addresses them properly I cannot recommend the book Mental Models by Indi Young enough: https://www.amazon.com/Mental-Models-Aligning-Strategy-Behav...

   Show morethread
2. sonofhansJul 2022
   “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman is excellent; he originally called it “The Psychology of Everyday Things,” but it kept getting misshelved. “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug is also very good. Neither of these is a specialist’s tome.

   “Mental Models” by Indi Young is good, one level deeper, mostly about humans. “About Face” by Alan Cooper is very thorough on the practitioner side, more of a college textbook, with lots of examples and pedagogy.

   Show morethread
3. mathewsandersDec 2018
   Every couple years I’ll go read Magic Inc by Bret Viktor (not a book, just online: http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/) and I always find it refreshing reminder to think about how we can design technology to help us rather than just create a CRUD interface.

   ‘Sketching User Experiences’ by Bill Buxton https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/980280.Sketching_User_Ex... and ‘Mental Models’ by Indi Young: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/ we’re both very influential to me as a young designer thinking about process and I believe they are still both relevant.

   Show morethread
4. pgroteDec 2017
   Mental Models Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior by Indi Young is excellent.

   http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/

   thread
5. adrianhowardApr 2013
   If you want to get better at writing surveys - go read "Asking Questions" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asking-Questions-Definitive-Question...

   If you actually want to look at how to get better at talking to users - rather than writing surveys - I'd recommend getting a copy of Andrew Traver's pocket guide "Interviewing for Research" http://www.fivesimplesteps.com/products/interviewing-for-res...

   There's also an upcoming book on interviewing by Steve Portigal http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/interviewing-users/ - googling around his name will find you some useful interviewing slide decks.

   Indi Young's book Mental Models has some good advice on interviews in one of the chapters, and is also a useful read http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/

   (Bias disclaimer: I know Andrew, and I do workshops on interviewing ;-)

   Show morethread
6. ivankAug 2008
   I get better value watching over many people's shoulders (for free or cheap - maybe not always cash) and listening to users.

   My only suggestion: if you're not exploring the set of all target users (just the 'git' guy), why not list what kind of applications you're most fit to test? I would hope to know you're not interested in SVN functionality before forking over $450. Exploring Assembla's SVN functionality could have revealed deeper flaws in their Trac integration. At one point, I was asked to re-enter my username and password in an ugly HTTP authentication dialog.

   Offtopic, but for anyone interested in a serious look at UX, I recommend Indi Young's 'Mental Models'

   Show morethread