Stefano Bussolon Conceptualize once,
Dario Betti
design anywhere

Definitions of UX
UX is about the user(s) internal states (predispositions, expectations, needs, motivation,
mood, etc.), the (eco)system, and the context.
Law, Roto, Hassenzahl, Vermeeren, Kort (2009)

Experiences
La vida no es la que uno vivió, sino la que uno recuerda y cómo la recuerda para contarla.
Gabriel García Márquez

Defining experiences
An experience is a valenced, structured, hierarchical, subjective representation of a past,
current, or future sequence of episodic elements.
An experience is a representation.
An experience designer creates representations.

Experiences and Episodic memory
The episodic memory is at the basis of any phenomenological emergence of an experience.
There can't be any experience without episodic memory.
The episodic memory is involved not just in remembering an experience (Conway, 2009), but
also in immagining one (Addis et al, 2009), and is recruited, online, while we are living - and
experiencing (Kurby et al, 2008).

The building parts of the experience
We conceptualize our experiences using our cognitive frames and the objects
and resources as semantic concepts.
Concepts are the building blocks of the experience

Concepts features
When asked to list the main attributes of a concept, participants productions can be
classified in four main categories:
1. Surface properties (identification and diagnosis of the internal state)
2. Functional properties (the affordances of the concept)
3. Taxonomic properties (classification of the concept)
4. Affective properties (emotional and cognitive valence of the object)
Wu, Barsalou (2009)

The user’s mental model
A mental model represents a person’s thought process for how something works.
It is the high-level understanding of how the artifact (not necessary a technological one) works:
this allows the user to predict what the application will do in response to various user’s
actions.

UCD and users' concepts
Methods to elicit the users' implicit concepts and attributes:
- Identifying their lexicon: there is a natural correspondence between vocabulary and
concepts
- Asking them to list the most important attributes of any concept.

From user’s mental model to conceptual model
The "conceptual model" of an application is
- the ‘ideal’ mental model (designed by the designer) of what the app allows you to
manipulate and what manipulations can do. UX designere shoud design a conceptual
model that is as close as possible to the mental models of users.
- the set of objects and related operations the artifact provides the user to accomplish a
certain task
- a statement of concepts that the application will expose to users
(Johnson and Henderson, 2011)

Mental models, conceptual models, ontologies
IMPLICIT EXPLICIT FORMAL
Domain semantic
expert interoperability
mental
model
Service/app
conceptual
automated
model reasoning
formal or
semi-
user research informal
User mental ontology
User User
mental
models
models
mental
models
service/app usage Service/app multi-channel
changes conceptual implementation
mental model model
implementation conceptual model (e.g. UML)

Conceptual models and IA
Define a conceptual model is needed in both informative and applicative dimensions
described by (Garrett, 2010).

Between taxonomies and ontologies
Vocabulary + Structure = Taxonomy
Taxonomy + Relationships, Constraint and Rules = Ontology
(Guarino, 2007)

Between taxonomies and ontologies
tennis game Conceptual game(x) → activity(x)
football athletic game
model as athletic game(x) → game(x)
game court game court game(x) ↔ athletic game(x) ∧ ∃y.
“ideal
tennis played_in(x,y) ∧ court(y)
field game
outdoor game
mental model” tennis(x) → court game(x)
court game game
field game NT athletic double fault(x) → fault(x) ∧ ∃y. part_of
game (x,y) ∧ tennis(y)
athletic game football
outdoor game
NT court game Axiomatic
Taxonomy RT court
theory
NT tennis
Glossary
RT double
fault DB/OO
Catalog scheme
Thesaurus
Ontological precision
(adapted from Guarino, 2007)

What is a conceptual model made of?
Description of functionality at a high level, i.e. what are the main functions offered to the user.
What are the relevant concepts covered by the application, creating a “vocabulary”.
For each of them, which are the attributes, operations and relationships with other
concepts?
Finally, how user tasks match with the concepts?
(Johnson and Henderson, 2011)

Model, representation, interaction
The conceptual model collects every relevant information of every concepts that is required
for the whole representation of the artifact.
The representations project the informations that are relevant in a given context
The interaction collects the informations (and the choices) the user needs
to explicitly communicate to the artifact

An example
The conceptual model of a clinical exam

Clinical exam experience
tbd

User research
User: "I go to this office, wait on in line, then give the prescription to the clerk and she tells me the availability. She offers me
a date, then I accept or reject, and asks me if I prefer the morning or in the afternoon. After I made arrangements on the
date, ske asks me to pay. Of course I was asked for the health card in order to record my booking."
Interviewer: "at this point what happens?"
User: "and then she records everything on my card. She prints a confirmation from the computer and then presents me,
and tells me how much I have to pay"
Interviewer: "and what is written in the press?"
User: "The type of examination, the date, the name of the doctor and the cost”. I had to sign the confirmation too."
Interviewer: "Perfect. Anything else?"
User: "The hospital name, its address, my name and my data too. My health card number. And no more."

Concepts

A draft of conceptual model
Objects Attributes Operations Relationships
Name, surname, Health card change email, mobile, One patient - many prescriptions
Patient
ID, email, mobile, password password One patient many appointments
Date and time, priority,
Prescription view details, book One prescription - many health services
repetitiveness
One health service - many prescriptions
Health service name, notes, cautions view details
One health service - many physicians
Physician name, surname, email send message, rate One physician - many health services
(Adapted from Johnson and Henderson, 2011)

A draft of conceptual model
Objects Attributes Operations Relationships
Point of care address, building, floor locate on map One point of care - many appointments
One organizational unit - many physicians
Organizational unit name, phone send message
One organizational unit - many point of care
One appointment - one point of care
date and time, cost,
Appointment book, cancel, rate One appointment - one health service
status
One appointment - one physician

From conceptual model to multichannel UX
“conceptualize once, use anywhere”
- design the model of the whole user experience
- design different views for different channels (devices) and contexts

Takeaways
“conceptualize once, use anywhere”
“conceptualize once, use anywhere”
- design the model of the whole user experience
“conceptualize always, formalize when required”
- design different views for different channels (devices) and contexts

Essential bibliography
Addis, D. R., Pan, L., Vu, M. A., Laiser, N., & Schacter, D. L. (2009). Constructive episodic simulation of the future and the
past: Distinct subsystems of a core brain network mediate imagining and remembering. Neuropsychologia, 47(11),
2222-2238.
Conway, M. A. (2009). Episodic memories. Neuropsychologia, 47(11), 2305-2313.
Garrett, J. J. (2010). The elements of user experience: user-centered design for the Web and beyond. New Riders Pub.
Guarino, N. (2007). Ontologies and Classifications, Italian IA Summit, Trento, 16th Novembre, unpublished
Johnson J., and Henderson A. (2011), Conceptual Models: Core to Good Use, Volume 12 of Synthesis Lectures on Human-
Centered Informatics Series Synthesis digital library of engineering and computer science, Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Kurby, C. A., & Zacks, J. M. (2008). Segmentation in the perception and memory of events. Trends in cognitive sciences, 12
(2), 72-79.
Law, E., Roto, V., Hassenzahl, M., Vermeeren, A., Kort, J. (2009). Understanding, scoping and defining user experience: a
survey approach. In: CHI, Boston, pp. 719–728
Wu L., Barsalou L. W. (2009). Perceptual simulation in conceptual combination: Evidence from property generation in Acta
Psychologica, Volume 132, Issue 2, October 2009, Pages 173–189

Thanks!
stefano@bussolon.it @sweetdreamerit
dario.betti@gpi.it @dariobetti