pattern set
External Modeling
Make Thinking Visible
Expressing mental models as artifacts outside the mind so they can be inspected, critiqued, and improved.
Practice Area > Mental Model Design
Design Better Mental Models
Creating explicit representations of how systems work so understanding can be shared, tested, and improved.
Related Pattern Sets
Explore related mental model design salons that help you design better mental models.
pattern set
Shared Model Alignment
Build Common Ground
Ensuring people are operating from compatible understandings of a system before they try to coordinate action.
Understand Mental Model Design
Construct and Evolve Mental Models
Mental models are the internal representations we use to understand how systems behave. Most mental models are implicit, incomplete, and inconsistent across people. Mental model design is the practice of making those models explicit, shared, testable, and improvable. This includes diagrams, maps, causal loops, and conceptual frameworks. The goal is not perfect accuracy. It is making understanding visible enough to work with.
