6-Jordan Mannfeld

For project 3, my partner and I looked at the design of YouTube's inbox. The user's mental model of the inbox is similar to that of other websites and applications which they have most likely used in the past. YouTube's inbox is like most email applications in the fact that there is a list of all the messages received, an outbox, and a button for composing a new message. The user is able to apply their mental model of using email to the YouTube inbox and perform the functions which they want to perform. The user may not necessarily understand what the system really does, but they are able to understand what it is and how to use it. The design of YouTube's inbox appeals to the common mental model for sending and receiving messages; this is what enables users to use it without much trouble, even on the very first time.

On the contrary, the implementation model of the programmers would be much less appealing to the user. In fact, the user may not even be able to comprehend a design if it only reflected the implementation model, or underlying technologies of the system. These types of designs usually only apply to the "geeks" or programmers behind a system and not to the system's users. If the programmers of YouTube had not applied the mental models of the user to their design of the inbox, it is likely that most would not understand how to use it, and therefore, not even use it at all.