Mental Models for Designers

Map vs Territory

Alfred Korzybski

Models are not reality; confusing the two leads to systematic errors.

Confirmation Bias

We seek evidence that confirms what we already believe and filter out what contradicts it.

Availability Cascade

Timur Kuran / Cass Sunstein

In 1999, Timur Kuran and Cass Sunstein published a paper that explains half of what goes wrong in public discourse: "Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation." The concept is a...

Anchoring

Kahneman & Tversky

First information encountered disproportionately shapes all subsequent judgements.

Framing Effect

Tversky & Kahneman

How you frame the question determines the answer you get.

Nudge Theory

Richard Thaler / Cass Sunstein

A nudge is any element of choice architecture that alters people's behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic...

Feedback Loops

Norbert Wiener / Jay Forrester

Outputs feed back as inputs, creating either amplifying or stabilizing dynamics.

Activation Energy

Reactions do not start the instant ingredients touch. They need a minimum energy input — activation energy — to overcome the barrier between initial and final state. In chemistry,...

Jobs to Be Done

Clayton Christensen

People hire products to accomplish specific functional, emotional, and social jobs.

Loss Aversion

Kahneman & Tversky

Losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good.

Social Proof

Robert Cialdini

When uncertain, people copy what others are doing.

Reciprocation Bias

Reciprocation Bias is the deep-seated compulsion to return favours, gifts, and concessions — even when the original gesture was uninvited, unwanted, or strategically calculated....

Ethos Pathos Logos

Aristotle

Persuasion runs on three rails: who you are, what they feel, and what you can prove. Aristotle distinguished ethos (character, credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (reason,...

Option Fatigue

Option fatigue is the paralysis that sets in when a customer or decision-maker faces too many choices. More options don't mean more sales — past a threshold, they mean fewer. The...

Progressive Load

Progressive load is the principle of introducing complexity, demand, or change to a system gradually rather than all at once. Systems — biological, organisational, or mechanical —...

Skin in the Game

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Decision-makers must bear consequences to align incentives.

Narrative Fallacy

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We compress complex reality into clean stories, mistaking explanation for prediction.

OODA Loop

John Boyd

Cycle through observe-orient-decide-act faster than competitors.

Goodhart's Law

Charles Goodhart

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

First Principles Thinking

Aristotle / Elon Musk

Strip a problem to its fundamental truths and reason up from there — the antidote to reasoning by analogy.