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: 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.

MENTAL MODELS: SENSORY APPEAL

WE ARE ENGAGED BY AND MORE LIKELY TO RECALL THINGS THAT APPEAL TO MULTIPLE SENSES.

How might this apply to your business?
Can you appeal to more senses than just sight or touch? Look for opportunities to add images, audio—maybe even the suggestion of smell or taste through copy and visuals.  While audio is an obvious choice for videos or music sites, find subtle ways you can add these same cues to hovers, clicks, log-outs and other routine actions. Look for places to augment test with imagery.

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.