We all know the purpose of Instagram reels; obviously competing with TikTok, so when we’ve seen it for the first time it was a little difficult to interact with the app, especially when they’ve changed the add post feature position.

Imagine now if you open Instagram and you notice that the app suddenly doesn’t support sharing or watching Reels anymore, what will be your first impression, easy what the hell is going on.

The belief that we’ve developed experiencing continuously the app led us to build a mental model of how the system will perform and deliver every time we interact with it.

This mental model is a representation of something — the real world, a device, system, etc. — that the user has in mind.

Users’ mental models come from their previous experience with similar systems or devices, assumptions they have, things they’ve heard others say, and also from their direct experience with the product or device.

In order to fully understand the influence of these mental models and their importance in user interfaces first, you must know what triggers them to be built, Spoiler Alert 🚨 “The product conceptional model”.

Product conceptual models are the actual models that are given to the user through the interface of the product in the forms of screens, buttons, etc, and things will or may happen. so interfaces are kinda a form to communicate the conceptual model of the product to the user.

At this point, you might be asking, “So? Why do I care about this mental model/product conceptual model idea?”

Here’s why: Everything we do in user experience is, ultimately, about the match, or mismatch, between the users’ mental models and the product’s conceptual model:

👉 If the models don’t match then the user will find the product hard to learn and use, the ABCs.

So in addition to designing meaningful experiences that are Intuitive, Reliable, Accessible, and Satisfying to the user while interacting with the product, you must utilize instincts and the user’s past knowledge to aid you to attain that.