The document discusses conceptual models for designing systems and interfaces. It defines a conceptual model as a high-level description of how a system is organized and operates, specifying major design metaphors, concepts exposed to users, relationships between concepts, and mappings to the task domain. It emphasizes that conceptual models should have a direct mapping to the tasks they support to be correctly understood and adopted by users.

1. DESIGNING WHAT
TO DESIGN
Jeff Johnson and Austin Henderson
Monday, April 16, 12

2. A WORKBOOK
Monday, April 16, 12

3. ASSUME YOU ARE
DESIGNING...
A Website. ✱ breadcrumbs ✱ support for
✱ an application
Is the site... for Web site discussion
for creating
navigation. Do grouped around
newsletters.
a) a collection of they show topics. Is
Is a newsletter
linked pages, or the structure
a) the history of
a) a list of items,
b) a hierarchy of pages you have a) a set of
or
pages with some gone through threaded lists,
crosslinks? to arrive here, or one for each
b) a set of pages
subject, or
each with layout
b) the place of
of
this page in the b) a set of
items?
hierarchy of postings each
pages? with poten -
tially related
subjects?
✱ A platform for creating questionnaires. Is the questionnaire
a) a linear list of questions, or b) a branching tree of questions?
Monday, April 16, 12

4. WHAT A CONCEPTUAL
MODEL IS...
a high-level description of how a system
is organized and operates.
It specifies and describes
✱ the major design metaphors and
analogies employed in the design, if any.
✱ the concepts the system exposes to
users, including the task-domain data
objects users create and manipulate,
their attributes, and the operations that
can be performed on them.
✱ the relationships between these
concepts.
✱ the mappings between the concepts
and the task-domain the system is
designed to support.
Monday, April 16, 12

5. Monday, April 16, 12

6. WHAT A CONCEPTUAL
MODEL IS...
?
a high-level description of how a system is
organized and operates.
It specifies and describes
✱ the major design metaphors and
analogies employed in the design, if any.
✱ the concepts the system exposes to
users, including the task-domain data
objects users create and manipulate, their
attributes, and the operations that can be
performed on them.
✱ the relationships between these
concepts.
✱ the mappings between the concepts
and the task-domain the system is
designed to support.
Monday, April 16, 12

7. WHAT A CONCEPTUAL
MODEL IS...
It specifies and describes
Lost
✱ the major design metaphors and
analogies employed in the design, if any.
• Looking up
• Walking into information in a
the office directory or book
• Approaching
• Going through
a maze
Help
the help desk
• Looking for a
• Talking to an needle
advisor in a haystack
Questions
Answers
Monday, April 16, 12

8. TASK FOCUSED
Task-Focused: The more direct the mapping between the
system’s operation and the task domain it serves, the greater
the chances that the designers target conceptual model will
be correctly reproduced and adopted by users.
A web app without a task-based conceptual model:
To log a week’s worth of hours consultants click on “Create
Record”
Why “Create Record,” rather than, LOG HOURS ?
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9. FINDINGS
Monday, April 16, 12