mental modeling

The age old question of “what do you think” is getting a lot of attention from usability experts. They really don’t care what your opinion is (unless the site is just that awful), they want to know how you categorize concepts in your head.

Chances are when you are going to do a known item search, you are going to default to YOUR way of thinking. Sounds straightforward, right? Except when you design a form of communication (read web site) – you (the designer) are going to use YOUR mental model for the design….98% (number outta my ass) of the time you are not the user. You need to ask one, or better yet ask a bunch of real users.