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and Other Ways to Use Mental Models

      Mental models are just one tool in your toolbox. Here’s an explanation of how they work in conjunction with other methods.

      Determine Your Research Method

      The best way to choose a user research method is to know what each technique is good for. Most user research techniques can be categorized into three groups: preference, evaluative, and generative. The first of these groups is the most widespread—preference. Not only do you see marketing departments sending out surveys and conducting focus groups, but you also see opinion polls flourishing in the media. Preference research is the most common type of customer research. It is perfect for canvassing a large number of people to determine how the product will be accepted or preferred by people. In Figure 2.1, you will see a sampling of techniques that support preference research. In the last column, there is a set of uses for preference research, such as branding. You’ll notice that you don’t use preference research to design interaction or information architecture. And, you don’t use it to find out how well a solution works.

DATA TECHNIQUE USES
Preference Opinions, likes, desires Survey Focus Group Mood Boards Preference Interview Card Sort Customer Feedback Visual Design Branding Market Analysis Advertising Campaigns
Evaluative What is understood or accomplished with a tool Usability Test Log Analysis Search Analytics Card Sort Customer Feedback Interaction Functionality Screen Layout Nomenclature Information Architecture
Generative Mental environment in which things get done Non-Directed Interview Contextual Inquiry Mental Model Ethnography Diary Navigation & Flow Interaction Design Alignment & Gap Analysis Contextual Information Contextual Marketing

      Figure 2.1.

http://flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/2159500714

      This User Research Types matrix will help you decide which research to use.

      For example, you would use generative research to find out how people buy books, which usually doesn’t differ based on age, gender, interests, or preferences. You would use preference research to find out which book a person would buy. However, the act of buying is not that different: Look for the book, make sure it’s the right choice, and then purchase it. Mental models generated with generative data and aligned with proposed information and functionality can deliver an unambiguous picture of how well a solution supports the user through gap analysis.

      Building Products Based on Preference Research is Like Building a Kitchen from a Stack of Magazine Clippings

      Imagine you are an architect talking to a couple who wants a kitchen remodel. They bring you a stack of magazine clippings with photos of kitchens they like. They talk about how they want to cook gourmet meals for friends with fresh produce from the farmer’s market. Your next step is to start drafting blueprints based on all this input, plus the information you already know, such as the efficiency of a work triangle in a kitchen. But imagine if you were not allowed to draw blueprints, and instead you were required to hand over the stack of magazine clippings to the contractor. Assume the contractor has never built a kitchen before, so he has no experience with kitchen functionality and work triangles. Without your skills at interpreting client input into a remodeling plan, the project would stall.

      Asking engineers to build a product based on a stack of preferences is just like asking a contractor to build a kitchen based on magazine clippings.

      Stepping back to a more general, rather than user/consumer, definition of research, Wikipedia defines three main forms of general research methods:

       Exploratory research, which structures and identifies new problems

       Constructive research, which develops solutions to a problem

       Empirical research, which tests the feasibility of a solution using empirical evidence[3]

      In a way, mental models embody both exploratory and constructive research, allowing you to derive solutions to problems from the data set as well as structuring where new problems for the next year might lie.

      How Mental Models Hook into Other UX Techniques

      Mental model research occupies a place in the constellation of techniques after user data collection and before product and interaction design concepts (see Figure 2.2). Its use as a planning roadmap is long-lived. You can refer to the same mental model for several projects over time.

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