Mental models and expectations

Mental models

An affordance is a possible action supported by the relationship between an actor’s capabilities and an object or environment.

Mental models

People can ignore page regions that resemble advertising or other routinely irrelevant content, even when those regions contain useful information.

Mental models

A conceptual model is the designed explanation of a system’s objects, relationships, actions, and state that the interface presents to users.

Mental models

Information scent is the perceived value of a cue for predicting whether a path will lead toward the information a person seeks.

Mental models

People bring expectations learned from other products, so familiar conventions often reduce the effort needed to begin using a new interface.

Mental models

A mental model is a person’s internal, partial representation of how a system works and what actions will produce.

Mental models

A mapping feels natural when the arrangement or movement of controls corresponds clearly to the arrangement or behavior of their effects.

Mental models

People often begin productive action immediately instead of investing first in broad instruction that might improve later efficiency.

Mental models

People often stop searching when they encounter an option that meets an acceptable threshold rather than exhaustively finding the theoretical optimum.

Mental models

Signifiers are perceivable cues that communicate where an action can occur, how to perform it, or what state an object is in.

Mental models

Responses are generally faster and less error-prone when the relationship between a signal and its control matches learned or spatial expectations.