Mental Models! — Quotidian — 462

(Transcript of video originally posted on 03 Apr 2023)

I’m sure you can relate to this unique phrase in Tamil? “Podaa Mentalu”! “Naan konjam Mental”! But, the truth is, even in England, the birthplace of English, this phrase, Mental, is used too.. Not just as a synonym for “loony” or “crazy” but also “insane” and “unbelievable”. For example, these scenes from the Harry Potter movie series! Unbelievable! Not insane! But, unbelievable! The “Mental” that we are going to see today are not these sorts of Mentals.. but, we are going to see something called Mental Models. Come along.

Namaste! Four hundred and sixty two! Mental Models. No, not that kind of mental. But, mental.. the way we think.

What is a mental model? When you start researching, .. this picture and this definition come everywhere. The way you absorb and enjoy the world around you. You don’t touch anything. You don’t really see anything. You don’t really smell. You don’t perceive. Nothing happens. The only thing you do is, receive all this input. And you keep it on one side in your brain. Keep it in one blank space. And you search in your mind, .. what does it resemble? What is it like? What is it reminding me of? What works for this? And so on. And on. You search, you rummage, and you discover that there is a pattern that you have already experienced, and you match it. And, only after the pattern is formed, “Oh, this is a lion”, “Oh, this is my loving wife”, “Oh, this is edible”.. That is what happens. And, in more complex levels, “If this is the scenario, this is the right response appropriate for it..” “Aha, this is dangerous. I need to be aware”. That is the fundamental explanation. What is a mental model? It is the explanation of someone’s thought process. The way we understand how the world works? It is really based on your mental models.

Mental Models.. What can it be a model of? It can be a model of a business. Amazon is an online marketplace where people can buy stuff. Zoho, that again is a mental model. Can I use just a browser, connected to the internet, to run my business? That again is a mental model. How do they help their customers achieve their needs, how do they make money. It could be a model of a complex tool. How does this tool work? Where do I hold it? What does it need as input? What will it achieve for me, as an end result? That mental model needs to reside in your mind. It could be a mental model for a recipe. This is the end product.. Ratatouille. How does one cook that? What are the steps? It could be a procedure. Or, it could even be a mental model of a state of mind. What is happiness? What is satisfaction? What is jealousy? What is anger? What is fear? All these exist as mental models inside our mind. Every one of us has a mental model for everything that we perceive in this world. Is it the right model or not? Do we have very few models in our mind, or do we have many? That is where the distinction comes between the performer and the also-ran.

Take for instance, a person not happy at work. He is not able to make ends meet. Not enough money. What can he do? What are all the options available for him? A mental model leads you to take a decision. A limited mental model will make him go to his boss, and say, “Boss, I need a raise. I am performing better. The company is doing well. I think I deserve more”. Might work out, might not work out. But that is the extent to which his mental model helps him. What else could he do? He could jump jobs. That is a paradigm shift. A quantum leap. From this job, a different domain, a different company, a different kinda job. A different model. It could even be that he has a Growth Mindset. An entrepreneurial mindset. A different mental model, that allows him to wonder, “Why should I work FOR somebody, when I can be my OWN boss!?” And that’s when he comes up with an idea and waters it. Beyond all this though, if the person has the right mental model, he may probably ask, “Why, Why, Why, Why am I doing this?” And at the end of that pursuit, he might realise, “What I actually need is simplicity in my life.. If I can keep my needs and wants in check, ..I don’t need to be on this hamster wheel.” That also is a mental model. So, a mental model, that you are born with, that you grow into, is going to play a key role in every decision you take.

Without mental models? Or, if you aren’t well-versed in USING the mental models that you have? Guess what will happen? We have read about this System 1, System 2, remember? You won’t let your System 2 really help you take your decisions. And, so, two important problems. First one, your decisions would be based on Momentum. “This is how I have been doing it for so far.., why not I just continue like that a little longer?” Sunk Cost Fallacy. That again is a mental model, by the way! “We have come this far, why not go a little longer?! To turn around requires overcoming inertia, I am not sure I would want to do that.” You make this mistake if you are stuck without the right mental model. Again, one more mistake you do when you don’t have the right mental model, is that you press the panic button. When you press the panic button, you act instinctively. Your animal, your lizard brain takes over. You are not allowing your intellect, your primate brain, your slow-thinking better-deciding brain to play a role to salvage you from the situation, from the hole you have dug yourself into. So, mental models are important.

Let us take an example. The design of an AC remote. I have a pet-peeve. I always wonder, which “distilled idiot” has designed this device. I will always be rankled whenever I see such remotes. For, my mental model of a remote came from a TV volume control, a contrast and brightness control, where UP meant “brighter”, “more”, “more”, “higher”, “larger”, “more”! And, in an AC.. what is MORE? What is the AC’s job? The AC’s job is to cool the environment I am in. “More cool”..? Nope. No AC works like that. When you press the UP button in an AC, it is the temperature control, and it gets WARMER. You see the clash of mental models? I come with a mental model, the designer who has designed something, has some other perception of the mental model, and hence, friction. Even worse, there are remotes that just say Minus, Plus, without any indication of what it is about. You will know only after you try it.. Whether it is temperature or cooling!

We have read this as Jakob’s Law. It means, basically, “Do what everybody else is doing, please. Don’t do something unusual and unique, after hours of deliberation in a private room; don’t do it differently, just because you wanted to do somebody nobody else had done!” Because, how much ever they are in love with you, they spend time, a lot more time, elsewhere. They could be your husband or your wife. Could be your friend. Could be your cellphone, even. Whatever it may be, whoever it may be, even if you love it the most, love them the most, if you count all the other time you spend elsewhere with the others, that will be more than the time you spend here.. We had seen this in an earlier Quotidian. What’s the lesson that we get from there? It says, “If you are going to design a remote, survey what the other remotes look like, and design something like that.”

I saw a remote like this one too. It was special. It was interesting. If you observe carefully, .. you will notice that there are buttons that say “Too warm” and “Too cool”. But, that is confusing too. Are we to press it if it is too warm? Or, are we to press “Too Warm” if we need to make the room too warm?? Confusion! There is one more confusion that I will share with you in the closing thought.

Do you remember this scene? Flow State? Till this day, whenever I encountered “Flow State”, I was only reminded of the “Wow feeling”. Elevated. Meditative. High-performing. Unmindful of the passage of time. No idea about what is happening in the environment. Without bothering about the suffering the body is undergoing. We have read stuff along similar lines, I am sure. But, just recently, while researching for this Quotidian, I came to know that the Flow State, is probably dangerous too. Why? Well, this Flow State forces you into a situation where you don’t call the assistance of mental models. “Hey, I am in a situation.. Am I right, being in this situation? Could I be in a more optimised, better-performing situation? Can I migrate there?” You can get answers only if you ask the questions! A Flow State forces you into a situation where you don’t even ASK the question! When you can’t even remember to ask a question, you can be assured, you will not get the answer. Perhaps this is why, millions of children around the world, they go through school, and immediately afterwards, they go to a college, irrespective of what their inner desires are, what their unfulfilled dreams are. Just because that is the flow state, that is the momentum, that is the panic button. “Everybody is doing it, let us do it too. Let us not end up missing out”. That single reason has perhaps led millions to enrol into colleges in courses where they are not sure whether they will still be passionate about it four years from now. Do you see the problem there?

A designer. Is designing a product. Has created an interface for it. How do they do it? They have a mental model of how that product should work. So, they create an interface. But, why is there a common problem about this? Why is it so infamous around the world, this general belief that user experience is such a mess..? That is because the user is a completely different person. Persona, they call it. They come with their own likes, their own dislikes, their own value system, their own needs, their own dreams, their own vision. They expect something from the product. They have their own mental model of how it will work. So, they receive it. They understand it their way. And, they try using it, that is the “understanding — implementing” cycle. When you try using it, you end up being unhappy, dejected, angry, because the mental model between the designer and the person who is actually using it, there is friction. There is no correlation. That is why, the designer of a product, the person who develops, the person who envisions, needs to have loads of empathy. I need to move out of my mind, become the other person, and try to understand the world from their point of view. Very hard, but that is what each of us should strive for.

As a closing thought, I told you that I will be highlighting one more problem with the AC. It is one thing to say that our AC remote should be designed like other remotes in the market. But, there is another problem. When I have formed a mental model that AC remotes will always look and function like this…, if you go ahead, look at the UP DOWN problem and design something unique, unusual, and different, and want to gift it to the world, expecting it to be the most intuitive, expecting it to fit their mental model of what it should look like, then, the second problem would be that it would go against the mental model I would have formed by then about how AC remotes work typically! For, typically, in a home, there would be 2 to 3 AC remotes! When all the other ACs look like each other, and this one looks unusual and different, that is a problem too! Do you understand the problem? So, the way this whole thing is setup, ironically, is, it will bring you down to the lowest level. You need to elevate the design aesthetic of EVERYBODY ELSE TOO. That has been Apple’s problem, by the way! It is not enough if Apple devices are intuitive.. They have to have such an influence in the world of design.. That is what they are doing in the Watch. Until the Apple Watch came along, all watches were circular! When Apple brought its square watch, .. “Oh,” they wondered, “It could be square too!” And, “Oh, it actually looks more functional and beautiful too”.. Circular watches became square. That is the challenge, and that is the mark of a great designer, with amazing empathy. Mental model matching! We will meet again soon! In fact, we will meet today, once again! Thank you!