Why is conceptual modelling important?
Ensuring that a product or system is designed with an easy-to-grasp conceptual model is one of the most important - and most elusively difficult - goals for any designer. Which means that the first task for a designer of any product, system or service should always be to try and develop an understanding of the (kinds of) conceptual model(s) that a user already has in their heads.
Once they have an understanding of the users conceptual model(s) - and they have documented it in either words, pictures or some combination of the two - their next task is to design with that conceptual model at the forefront of their mind at all times. |
How? What? |
Creating a conceptual model - for both users (real people) and designers - involves developing an understanding of the following three things:
- The components of the product or system in question
- The relationships of the components to each other
- The kinds of changes in the components or their relationships to each other that will effect the functioning of the system, and in what ways
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Attributes |
- Conceptual models are not diagrams or specifications, although pictures and words can be used to describe them
- Conceptual models represent what is true, not what is false
- The more complex a model is required to be - essentially, the higher the number of components it contains - the more difficult it is for someone to understand what the model is intended to represent
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References |
Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1983) Mental models. Cambridge University Press.
Byrne, R.M.J. (2005) The Rational Imagination. How people create alternatives to reality. Cambridge, MA. MIT Press.
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