---
date: '2023-09-12'
description: conceptual models, mental models, and the paradox where technology simplifies yet complicates through added features and complexity.
id: System Image and Paradox of Technology
modified: 2026-06-05 15:08:34 GMT-04:00
tags:
  - swfr4hc3
title: System Image and Paradox of Technology
created: '2023-09-12'
published: '2023-09-12'
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[[thoughts/university/twenty-three-twenty-four/sfwr-4hc3/Psychopathology of everything#Fundamental principles of Interaction|Fundamental principles of Interaction]] ends with the conceptual model of the system.

- People form mental models of themselves, of their environment and of the things they use. These models come from experience and can be incomplete or wrong.
- The designer has a conceptual model of how the product works. The user builds a separate model from what they see and do.
- The two never meet directly. The user learns only from the system image: the physical product, its controls and labels, its behaviour, its documentation and its marketing.
- If the system image is incomplete or contradicts the designer’s model, the user forms a wrong model and makes errors that look like user mistakes (Norman, _The Design of Everyday Things_, ch. 1).

> What does it takes to create a good conceptual models?
>
> - Users study?
> - Low-fidelity prototype

Paradox of technology

> The same technology that simplifies life by providing more functions in each device also complicates life by making the device harder to learn, harder to use.

Each added function needs a control, a mode or a menu entry. Each one also adds to the system image the user has to learn.

Design challenges

- Price
- features parity
- reliability
- supports