Mental Models: Sparking Creativity Through Empathy

You have probably heard all this talk about addressing "the whole user experience." You may have also heard that "innovation" is the new key to getting ahead of your competition, and "empathy" is the way to design good solutions. You are eager to jump on the bandwagon, but how can you address all the things going on in the user's world, gain insight into their philosphies, and innovate based on what you learn? How do you know the extent of the user's flow of attention in the first place?

In this presentation, author Indi Young will introduce you to a method for modeling the attention flow of a group of people with similar motivations. She will also discuss how to make sure this model truly represents the root of what is driving your end user's natural behavior. It is easy to make assumptions, but less so to dive down to the core emotions, philosophies, and actions that drive people's behavior. The presentation will focus on how mental models represent the whole user experience. Indi will address how to coax the model towards representing the true roots of people's behavior. You will learn about The Hallway Test. A true model will illuminate the user's world and allow you to tell a more compelling story to product developers. Indi will show you how to use the mental model as a communication path between the users, the designers, the developers, and the business executives.