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Mental models in UX Design in examples

The best way to explain Mental Models? With examples.

Max Stepanov
UX Collective
9 min readNov 28, 2018

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For example, in early 2016 Fiat Chrysler automobiles recall over 1 million vehicles due to a new shifter design, called the Rocker Switch Gearshift.

And what does this shifter design do?

A user should press the button on it and then move back and forth (ratchets through the park, reverse, neutral) to shift through the gears that way. But then the shifts are always returned back to the center position.

So, the only indicator of which gear the driver had was the letters illuminated by a light. But actually, there was no positional feedback, so users had no indicators of which gear they were in.

What’s the problem?

Why did they recall? What happened when people were getting out of their cars, thinking the shifter was in park mode?

Yes, the cars drove off without them. This, of course, led to crashes, injuries, and so on.

Chrysler’s official response to this was that gear selection is conveyed to the driver by multiple sets of indicator lights, not…

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Published in UX Collective

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Written by Max Stepanov

Design Lead| Human-Computer Interaction specialist| Experience in Product Development and Digital Communications🦄 www.linkedin.com/in/outmn/

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