MENTAL MODELS: RECOGNITION OVER RECALL

IT’S EASIER TO RECOGNIZE THINGS WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY EXPERIENCED THAN IT IS TO RECALL THEM FROM MEMORY.

How might this apply to your business?
Multiple-choice or one-click options are easier for people to interact with on a site. If you’re considering asking people to list things from memory, try complementing (or replacing) empty form fields with defined, random or intelligent choices that people can click on or rate.

See also: Visual Imagery, Limited Choices, Contrast, Feedback Loop

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

MENTAL MODELS: SHAPING

TO REACH SOMETHING NEW, START WITH THE SIMPLEST FORM OF BEHAVIOR, REINFORCE INCREASINGLY ACCURATE APPROXIMATIONS OF THE BEHAVIORS. 

How might this apply to your business?
Video games use shaping to help players succeed at increasing challenges. Rather than immerse someone in your application, why not start with a small set of features and reveal more with use? Or, you could offer rewards for mastery of a subject or increasing proficiency to reach that behavior, reward completion of a step until mastered, then add in the next step as a prerequisite for receiving the reward.

See also: Sequencing, Variable Rewards

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

MENTAL MODELS: ACHIEVEMENTS

We are more likely to engage in activities in which meaningful achievements are recognized.

How might this apply to your business?
Achieving something of personal or social significance is gratifying and even motivating, more so when recognized in some way. In gaming environments, achievement is shows through points, badges, levels and other kinds of recognition. In other contexts, achievement is signaled by things like promotion, membership, privileges, and acquisitions. What challenges—tied to desired behaviors—do you have in place and what are the associated achievements?

See also: Appropriate Challenges, Feedback Loops, Competition, Reputation, Status, Story

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

MENTAL MODELS: AFFECT HEURISTIC

OUR CURRENT EMOTIONS INFLUENCE OUR JUDGMENT AND DECISIONS.

How might this apply to your business?
Even at our most rational times, emotions still govern our behaviors. So how are you stimulating specific emotions? A really great first impression can make up for errors later on. And when we are in a more relaxed state, solutions and workarounds are more likely to be found. Use aesthetics and language to elicit feelings such as humor, fear or pleasure.

See also: Priming, Humor Effect, Visual Imagery

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

MENTAL MODELS: CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR

WE MAKE SENSE OF A NEW IDEA OR CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN BY LIKENING IT TO ANOTHER.

How might this apply to your business?

How are you using visual imagery or evocative language to explain difficult concepts? Help people understand your message by drawing a literal or implied analogy. Use this association to help people understand a concept and to influence how it’s perceived.

See also: Priming, Framing, Visual Imagery

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

Mental Models: Status Quo Bias

WE TEND NOT TO CHANGE AN ESTABLISHED BEHAVIOR (UNLESS THE INCENTIVE TO CHANGE IS COMPELLING).

How might this apply to great teams and cultures?

People are inclined to keep things as they are. We go with the flow to build trust and create subtle shifts. With status quo, there is a lack of tension, a feeling of comfort. It is about fairness, balance and 'rightness'. We like and trust people who we believe are like us and who like us. When we trust them, we are then more easily persuaded by their recommendations. We are also more persuaded when they do not knock our arguments.

How might this apply to your business?

People adopt what is recommended by people (and brands) they trust—simply stating the most popular options is often enough to influence decision—and people tend to stick with that choice.

Consider

Have you thought through the default options in your app? the service you provide? the product you've built? If you’re asking people to switch, consider how you might represent sticking with the status quo as a loss (and pitch the new system as an “alternative” rather than a replacement).Rather than argue (against the opposing view or the competition), how can you agree in a way that does not compromise what you want them to think or the choice you want them to make? Rather than fighting their arguments, include them in your case.

See Also

Loss Aversion, Ownership Bias, Familiarity Bias, Story, Framing

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

MENTAL MODELS: PATTERN RECOGNITION

OUR BRAINS SEEK WAYS TO ORGANIZE AND SIMPLIFY COMPLEX INFORMATION, EVEN WHEN THERE IS NO PATTERN.

How might this apply to your business?
What information can you display in a way that arouses curiosity and encourages pattern-seeking behavior? Patterns can be found within a single page (a list of services, for example) or spread across a site (a curious icon set or color coding that make sense once the pattern is discovered). Also consider playful ways to enable users to organize or label information—such as making a game of arranging things.

Related: Juxtaposition, Set Completion, Curiosity, Proximity, Uniform Connectedness, Proximity, Visual Imagery.

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

MENTAL MODELS: PERIODIC EVENTS

RECURRING EVENTS CREATE A SUSTAINED INTEREST, ANTICIPATION AND SENSE OF BELONGING.

How might this apply to your business?
Excluding “scheduled maintenance outings,” what do your clients/users have to look forward to or reminisce about? Are there regular, recurring events enjoyed by al? Many kinds’ games use a narrative structure to create events—why not try the same in our business applications and public websites? Consider ways that all users or groups within a system could enjoy shared, recurring experiences.

See also: Story, Limited Duration, Limited Access, Peak-End Rule

MENTAL MODELS: DURATION EFFECTS

PERCEPTION OF TIME IS RELATIVE.

How might this apply to your business?
If people must wait for you to run a routine or complete a cycle before getting feedback, create the perception that things are moving faster than they are. Reveal part of the process as it is completing rather than show everything all at once. Or, offer a distraction: people who are mentally engaged in a task or present in the moment of an experience don’t notice how long it takes.

See also: Humor Effect, Appropriate Challenges, Sequencing, Shaping, Affect Heuristic

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

MENTAL MODELS: PROXIMITY

THINGS THAT ARE CLOSE TO ONE ANOTHER ARE PERCEIVED TO BE MORE RELATED THAN THINGS THAT ARE SPACED FARTHER APART.

How might this apply to your business?
Use proximity to create logical groupings. If an image goes with a piece of text, then those two elements should be close together and distanced from other pairings. Similarly, related elements on a form page or dashboard should be clustered together. Examine your content  to see which items should be grouped for more clarity.

See also: Juxtaposition, Uniform Connectedness, Visual Imagery, Contrast

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.