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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/35031
- Title
- Learning about new technology: layperson mental models
- Author(s)
- Langan-Fox, Janice; Anglim, Jeromy
- Abstract
- Increasingly lay people are interacting and attempting to acquire proficiency in technical devices and systems without instruction. Technology is no longer the domain of a small computer sub-culture but is encompassing every aspect of daily life, and requiring people of very different age, education, ability, and experience to utilise technical devices. It would appear that in many cases designers have failed to adequately consider usability issues when designing these devices and systems for lay populations. Norman (1988) has suggested several key design principles to aid the design of everyday tasks. These include simplification, affordances, mappings, constraints and intuitiveness. Recent theoretical developments into the acquisition of mental models provides a useful means for drawing out how these properties of a device interact with the users' mental model in an iterative process to produce an adaptive representation. Practical intelligence may have use here in accounting for individual differences to adapt in an environment where common sense is more important than academic skills. Through an integration of these literatures usability researchers would be able to identify incompatibilities between system image and designer and user mental models, thereby enabling devices and systems to be better suited to particular user groups. Such issues are likely to continue to be the utmost importance as cognitive demands and the number of technical devices increase over the 21st century.
- Publication type
- Conference paper
- Source
- Better integration: bringing research and practice together: Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Ergonomics Society of Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 27-30 November 2001, p. 153-159
- Publication year
- 2001
- Keyword(s)
- Mental models; Practical intelligence; Skill acquisition; System design; Usability
- Publisher
- Ergonomics Society of Australia
- ISBN
- 0958685460
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2001 Ergonomics Society of Australia.
- Peer reviewed
