Mental Models---Design Is All About Aesthetics.

Design is all about right aesthetics and making choices.Each color used, shape drawn, font used, graphics created ultimately influences the message we are trying to put across.

While taking up design as a career, I have been quite thoughtful about it, I have been in conversation with colleagues who seek to get better in design but they are not quite sure of their aesthetics. To have a similitude in aesthetics with the client you are designing for is the biggest challenge for the designers. However i believe that learning to design well has much to do with psychology and user behavior is directly proportional to creativity

Most Importantly understanding how to design is just not the way to pick up text book on design that will tell you right or wrong to design something. That is definitely not the way it works, it has lot to do with behavioral study, understanding human psychology, the demand and motivation towards a certain concept.

Mental model-- the creative workbook.

In this epoch of smart interfaces and user experiences, the secret to designing an intuitive UX is having a well synchronized mental models. Now when we talk about mental models that means the pattern or the algorithm your brain tries to relate as soon as your are given a new task to accomplish. For an example imagine that you have never seen a kindle but someone handed you one to you and told you that you can read a book in it. So before you touch the kindle you already have a model in your head of what reading a book in kindle will be like.Either you have used a kindle before so you know how the reading surface will be like or you are reading it for the first time then you might compare it with reading an original tactile book. The way you flip pages, the way you attach bookmark etc. If you have used any e-reading software before then again your mental model of reading the same will be different. And once you get a kindle and start reading a couple of chapters in it you start to change and adjust to reflect your experience (Susan Weinschenk, 2011).

Mental models have been around the system of design since a longtime. while explaining mental models we should also try and understand conceptual models.

The first person to introduce mental model was Kenneth.J.Craik in 1943 in his book " the nature of explanation. Due to sudden dealth of Craik in a bicycle accident the concept remained dormant for a while until 1980's when the term was revived.There were two dedicated books which were published with the title mental models.

Don Norman states that a user's mental model is based on belief that they have had all this while and not on facts. So there is a high probability the belief can be wrong or can be proved wrong. There lies the thin line of difference between conceptual models and mental models.

A mental model is the mental mapping the user has in mind that how the system or the interface will work. And a conceptual model is how the design wants the system to work.

Conceptual model to Mental model.

Aesthetic derives from the Greek word meaning ‘through the senses’. It refers to the matrix of sense, feeling and sensibility, i.e. a form of intelligence. Through aesthetic intelligence we are able to apprehend a realm of meaning and value essential to any full concept of human existence.

Jerome Stolnitz (1960) argues that we tend to perceive the world selectively, concentrating on some features and ignoring others, depending on our purpose. This he calls ‘the attitude of practical perception’.

But on occasion we pay attention to a thing simply for the sake of enjoying the way it looks or sounds or feels. This is the aesthetic attitude of perception.

Aesthetics can be visual, behavioral but it should be primarily appealing. some say aesthetic should be soothing. Each human has his own way of perceiving and understanding design aesthetics.

We enjoy looking and using aesthetically pleasing design, because a pleasing design tends to satisfy our senses and give us pleasure.There is a separate branch of philosophy which explores aesthetics as a separate field of study. The halo effect means humans tend to assume that good looking people have other positive qualities apart from their looks and features. The same principle is valid for Product design. Good looking aesthetically pleasing interfaces are perceived as more valuable and also having more attributes.

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References

Stolnitz, J., 1960. Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art Criticism.

Susan Weinschenk, P., 2011. The Secret to Designing an Intuitive UX. UX magazine, 8th October .

Patton, b. J., 2014. User Story Mapping. 1st ed. Florida: O’Reilly Media.

Weinschenk., S., 2012. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People. 1st ed. Berkeley, California.: New Riders.