ON COMPLEXITY AND MENTAL MODELS

Donald A. Norman on his book “Living with Complexity” talks about the relation between mental models and complexity. For him, simplicity is in the mind… and the key to enable simplicity is a good conceptual model.

A conceptual model is the underlying belief structure held by a person about how something works. A conceptual model resides in people’s mind, which is why it is also called a mental model. Conceptual models help us transform complex physical reality into workable, understandable mental concepts.

The power of a conceptual model is to simplify our understanding of otherwise complex natural phenomena. The designer’s job is to provide people with appropriate conceptual models.

Eventually, what makes some device simple or complex is whether the person using the device has a good conceptual model of how it operates.

Excerpts from: Norman, A. Donald. Living with Complexity. MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2011