Unlike their technical counterparts, average users approach software with caution. Unless the interface is carefully designed, the user will worry that they may cause harm to their data, or, though very unlikely, damage the device itself. (For most consumers, data loss is a real threat, and one that they are not sufficiently computer-literate to solve.) Don Norman, in his seminal book Design of Everyday Things, saw the danger of not taking into account these differing mental models in order to create a coherent system image and recognized that “a good conceptual model allows us to predict the effects of our actions, without a good model we operate by rote, blindly, we can’t appreciate what effects to expect or what to do if things go wrong.”

Take note that Norman uses the word ‘blind’ to describe the use of illegible system images. This is no accident. As will be explored more fully throughout Humanist Interface, the primary way we understand computers is spatio-visually. It is interesting to note Norman’s insistence that the computer be “invisible.” These two positions are certainly contradictory, but it must be near impossible to not experience some cognitive dissonance while attempting to be a practitioner of design while simultaneously holding the view that design should be disembodied.

Mental Model Projection

Technical software producers have an immense familiarity with the design models of software, with what can often be decades of experience with varying interface systems and platforms. Given this, they run the risk of myopically assuming that average users’ mental models have evolved to their same level of competence. The fact is that this is rarely the case. With never-ending updates to applications, operating systems and devices, even the most faithful technical users will inevitably run into new and unfamiliar design patterns. Since technical users do, in fact, expend significant effort to keep up with new developments, then regular users must struggle far more. It is thus inexcusable for software producers to ignore this disconnect between mental models and assume the user will just figure it all out.

Illegible Keyboards

A recent example of designers projecting their own mental models onto their users is the iOS software keyboard redesign from dimensional to modern minimalist. In earlier versions of iOS, realistic lighting, shading and expressive color were put to good use in order to differentiate the key states. In the modern minimalist interpretation on the other hand, the design was built on the assumption that multiple redundant, obvious and emphatic cues about the capitalization of text were excessive and unnecessary.