Research For Interface Design Of Handheld Mobile Devices Based On Mental Model In User Experience Design

The rapid development of information technology and the internet make the technological innovation pattern changed gradually. User centered design together with the people-oriented thought attract further attention. Interface, as an information window of the information product, has also paid more attention on the users. It cares not only the functions and appearance, but also the usability of the products, especially the user experience. Mental model was originally known in the cognitive theory. The excavation of human cognitive model is a study of users' cognitive process and the usage habits, just like the excavation for the demands of the user experience design. They have the high degree of consistency. Handheld mobile devices become more widely used by people. Because of its portability and the complexity of the usage environment, hand-held mobile devices could be used at anytime and anywhere. It also demands that the hand-held mobile devices should be ease to use and learn, and could not give the user additional burden on cognition in order to avoid taking up too much attention of the users.The paper was based on user experience design theory. First author analyzed the mental models in interface design. In this paper, the users' cognitive mental model was divided into two kinds: the macro-forms and micro-forms. Through the research of user experience design, the mapping model between provider and recipient of interface was proposed. The factor of interface was also divided into explicit factors and tacit factors, and the explicitization design model of tacit factors was present.Next the paper tried to explore the experimental methods to capture the users' mental model which can be reference in the life cycle of product design. Meanwhile, according to the user experience design theory and the knowledge of the user requirement analysis, the design model was constructed based on mental model and the user experience design process. It described the common design methods and documentation output requirements at every stage of the product development process.At last this paper selected the handheld mobile devices as medium to design the "SmartAngel" phone system software. Through interviews and questionnaires, we conducted a user study to allow users to participate in the design of the entire design process. From the research of user's mental model, we established a prototype of the system and finished the interface design. At the end of this paper we conducted a testing to evaluate the usability of the prototype, and verified the user experience in the mental model of interface design based on the theoretical system.