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Every one of us uses mental models as we go about our lives—regardless of your product, service or industry, your users have mental models that guide them.

But what are mental models? Simply put, a mental model represents how a person thinks something works. Mental models do evolve through time and experience, but in every form, they shape how users behave, what they notice and how they process information.

As a designer, should you care about mental models? Absolutely. If your design is incompatible with your users’ mental models, they’ll find it challenging to use your product or service. If you don’t consider the mental models your users have, you risk creating friction for your users. And wherever there’s friction, there’s low user engagement, low product adoption and many more negative effects on your product’s success.

Learning how to leverage and influence mental models is a powerful skill for designers to have. And in this Master Class webinar, Susan and Guthrie Weinschenk will help you get started effectively!

You’ll learn:

• How to understand the mental models your users have
• How to influence users to change their mental models
• How to incorporate mental models into steps in your design process
• How to test whether your designs fit with prevailing mental models
• How to decide how many mental models to consider within your user base

With a more robust understanding of mental models, you’ll find more success in how you attract, onboard, engage and retain users. Knowing how your users and customers think is a highly valuable skill set in any function or role, so join this webinar and learn how to apply mental models in your work. Even if you cannot attend it live, register to get access to a recording that you can watch anytime afterwards!

Ever taken detailed notes at an important event or meeting only to look at them later and feel like there’s something missing? Like you couldn’t properly capture all the important things you heard, saw, thought, felt, and remembered? Like mere words and phrases weren’t enough to help you preserve and relive the moments of inspiration you had?

In late 2006, Mike Rohde experienced this exact dilemma even though he maintained large volumes of detailed notes. He realized that note-taking shouldn’t be such a detestable task, and set out to find a more enjoyable and more useful way to take notes. A way that goes beyond the limitations of words and uses visuals to help capture big ideas. A way that would remove the need to write volumes, allowing one to be fully present and involved in the moment.

And thus, sketchnoting was born.

Sketchnotes are rich visual notes created from a mix of handwriting, drawings, hand-drawn typography, shapes, and visual elements like arrows, boxes, and lines. Sketchnotes don't require special drawing skills, but do require you to listen and visually synthesize and summarize ideas via writing, drawing and icons.

Since then, Mike’s novel approach of sketchnoting has helped people around the world to take joy in the note-taking. And through this Master Class webinar, you too can benefit from this immersive new way to capture ideas!

You’ll learn:

• Why you should sketch
• Benefits of going to paper first, not pixel
• The basic elements of sketching
• Examples of sketchnoting
• How to take part in a sketching activity

The most exciting part is that this webinar also includes a LIVE sketchnoting session where you can learn sketchnoting by doing it alongside Mike! And like always, this Master Class webinar ends with a live Q&A where you’ll get to put forward your questions to Mike!

Sketchnoting is beneficial for everyone, and you don’t need to be a skilled artist to benefit from it. It’s a powerful way to be more present in the important moments in your life and work, and to document your biggest takeaways in any situation. So join this webinar to get started—even if you cannot attend it live, you can register to get access to a recording!