6-Jill Moore

Support the User's Mental Models

In thinking about our design for Youtube, my partner and I realized that the main mental model users have for Youtube is that the search function will help them find any video that they are looking for quickly and easily and that this is the main function they use it for. Since the search feature is so important, people first look towards the largest element on the page, and in the original design of Youtube, this was the ad space. Instead, we made it the Youtube logo and then the search bar towards the left, since people read left to right in English.

This differs perhaps from the implementation model, since the implementation model might focus on the entirety of the features the website has to offer, such as uploading videos and creating playlists.The developers wouldn't give certain features priority over others, especially if those features were almost self explanatory while others seem to need more explanation.