UB: mental models, unveiled!

Last week we unveiled our mental models to the University at Buffalo community—silent sigh of relief, big yay for all of us!

Four models in total:

1. Matchseekers: people evaluating whether an institution, job, or working relationship is a good fit for them.

2. IT Solution seekers: people looking for answers to IT-related questions or issues.

3. Health Solution seekers: people looking for answers to health-related questions or issues.

4. Active Supporters/Prideful Belongers/Pulsetakers: people who want to support the institution, as well as people who track specific issues of interest within the institution.

The work to-date represented over 1,000 collective hours of research and analysis. In our prep for presentations, Rebecca and I asked each other “So, what we learn, and was it worth it?”

First, the learning. My key takeaways:

1. We learned how to listen differently. The process of having these conversations talk us how to listen intently without leading or constraining. One person on Rebecca’s team told her that, as a result of this project, she’d never do interviews in the same way.

2. We confirmed some of what we thought we knew. Having done this for awhile, we thought he had a good sense of our audiences’ needs and expectations. In many cases, we affirmed that sense.

3. We filled in the blanks. We knew, for instance, that prospectives evaluated both the institution and the city in making their decisions. Now we know that they evaluate the city and institution by different criteria, and that criteria changes from mental space to mental space.

So was it worth it? Yes, indeed. Particularly for developing content-the mental models give us a good deal of information about framing and delivering information to better meet the needs and expectations of our target audiences. The models also help in developing detailed architecture-knowing more about the what, when, wheres, and whys helps us to create link sets and information clusters more effectively.

And the models scale. We’re applying the matchseeker model to sites for the medical school and to university communications as a start. That same model can be used by the rest of the schools at UB as the Web Content Initiative rolls out through the institution over time. And that model can be expanded, with additional research being combed into the model to continue to enhance our understanding.

My favorite moment came when a faculty member from the medical school commented to me that the information he saw in the models confirmed his experience—not only as a doctor and researcher, but also as an individual. That affirmation, priceless.

The next few weeks, another bit of a race: baseline testing, information architecture development, usability, and wireframes…