Mental Models for Product Design

Mental models are ways to organize our thoughts. Let’s explore some of the models applied in the context of product development.

First Principles Thinking: This is a technique used to extract the core underlying ideas behind a product.

We can apply “First Principles Thinking” to establish a guiding principle or a core belief for a product. For instance, the core principle of Frontier Airlines is Low Fares Done Right. Whether it is a “simplified fare scheme”, “non-flight revenue streams” or “stripped-down operational cost”, the core idea is always the same.

Second-Order Thinking: This principle requires us to think holistically, beyond immediate consequences.

I received the below promotional email from Frontier Airlines, which is an example of them applying second-order thinking. By giving away free tickets, they are optimizing for the long term even if they lose revenue in the short run. By encouraging vaccinations they are promoting a customer behavior that will result in an eventual increase in their ticket sales.

Inversion: Inversion is about looking at the other side of the coin. If I were to ask, “What will help me solve this problem?”, the inversion will be, “What will prevent me from solving this problem?”. This will allow us to question our assumptions and think about the problem from a different perspective.

Example: Let’s hypothesize that the Product Manager in Expedia wants to answer the question “How can I convert customers and gain customer trust”. If I inverted this question it would be “What will make me lose customer trust”.

While booking for hotels, I saw some hotels were advertised with a lower price but when I went to their website the price was not the same which made me not convert to a customer. Expedia could use the inversion model to look at ways to answer “What will make me lose customer trust?”. One of the answers is to eliminate the bad players that are gaming the algorithm and thereby regain customer trust.