Mental Model-Based Mobile Translation Application Interaction Research

In the 21st century, leaded by Information Technology Revolution, High-Tech develops very rapidly, not only broke through the borders, and narrowed the distances from country to country. It makes the world economy increasingly melts for a whole. As the most basic communication tool, Language is very important, language translation needs appeared in all aspects of social life, and the needs for language translation are getting more and more tremendous. Meanwhile in the new era, with the development of Mobile Internet, Smart phone are playing a more and more important role in the daily life, users requires mobile translation applications more and more strongly in this context.Mental Model, which is produced in Cognitive Psychology, is already widely used as a basic design theory in today’s Human-Computer Interaction Study. In the context of rapid developments of Technology, the gaps between digital products’Representation Model and users’Mental Model are becoming bigger and bigger, users are getting more and more confused to assimilate them into their own existing cognition, it definitely intensifies users’burden of studying and adapting. Therefore, for commercial projects, how to bridge Interaction Design and user’s Mental Model becomes an inescapable question for designers, this is also exactly the main content of the research in this paper.Cornerstone of this paper is interaction design practices in Microsoft Windows Phone 7. This paper focuses on the research of Mental Model-based HCI in Mobile Translation Applications. Firstly, starting from the cognitive psychology, the corresponding cognitive structure development process of building Mental Model is analyzed. Through the deep exploration of Mental Model in interaction design, the cognitive representation of interaction design is analyzed, and then the process of Mental-Model based interaction design is proposed. The WP7 Translation was taken as the carrier and the application of the research in this paper, it illustrated the design process from catching user’s Mental Model to User Interface design which is guided by user’s Mental Model. At the meanwhile, the new directions and new interactive ways of Mobile Translation Application under new technologies are also explored, and the design solution is also created. In the last of this paper, aim to verify the matching of user’s mental model and final design, a usability test is conducted, finally the design solution got positive feedback which validates the validity and reliability of reference which is from previous work.The innovation points of this paper are as following: From the perspective of Assimilation and Accommodation in cognition development, analyzed the cognition representation in interaction design, and purposed the design strategy and design process for User’s Mental Model. Research in this paper can be a reference for further development in Mobile Translation Applications, the methodologies used in catching and building users’mental model and the corresponding design strategy and tools can also be a reference for other mobile applications.