The average adult human brain contains approximately a hundred
billion neurons used to inform and and operate the human
machine. With all of that processing power, system support and
design repetition it’s sometimes curious as to why the machine
is such a fickle thing. All it takes is a moment for our mood to
change. Ideas and complex concepts can form in seconds given the
right amount of cognitive capacity. Even something as simple as
the way a sentence is structured or the words we choose will
impact perceptions or the potential for another’s comprehension.
It’s precisely for all of these ambient, behavioral and
situational factors factors that content strategists should be
better leveraging mental mapping and modeling for the planning,
design and implementation of content. Mental Modeling is far
from a new thing. In fact, thinkers from the UX design community
have been advocating its use for years (e.g: Indi Young’s Mental
Models: Aligning Design Strategy With Human Behaviors), because
it helps in understa