What User Mental Models Are and Why They Should Drive Your IA
Published April 18, 2026 • 3 minute read
By Austin Govella, digital strategist (and former information architect)
Since 1998, Austin has applied his information architecture skills for organizations big and small all across the globe. He co-authored Information Architecture: Blueprints for the web, 2nd edition with Christina Wodtke.
Key takeaway: Mental models represent how users think about something. Information architecture crafts mental models that help teams design products and services that work the way your users expect.
A mental model is how someone thinks about a thing. It’s the model they have in their head for how that thing works. Wikipedia describes mental models as, “a way of representing reality within the mind”.
Why mental models are important
Information architecture makes sense of things, so they make sense for other people. If you know the user’s mental model, then you can use their mental model to help make things make sense.
When you practice information architecture, you ask four questions:
What stuff do we have?
How can we organize this stuff?
What can we call this stuff?
How is this stuff related?
When you ask these questions, there's an implied, “for who to use”. What stuff do we have for this person to use? How can we organize this stuff for this person to use? What can we call this stuff for this person to use? How is this stuff related for this person to use?
So, the person’s mental model for how things work should influence how you should answer the four questions. When you understand their mental model, you make things make better sense.
When you craft an information architecture, you craft a mental model. You’ve made sense of something. Hopefully, it makes sense for other people.
Mental models do even more work for teams
By default, when you build something, it matches the team’s mental model, and that model rarely matches your user’s mental model, so what you build won’t make sense to your user.
Understanding your user includes understanding their mental model.
Teams do work of any scale. Rarely will you work on a project alone. Just like your user has a mental model, so does your team. Knowing your user's mental model reveals the gap between how your team thinks and how your users think.
When you create a mental model, you don’t just create a guide for how to design, you build a bridge your team can cross to better design for the user.
That's the magic of information architecture skills and tools. IA tools make and reveal mental models. That’s how they work. Information architecture identifies mental models for the things you want to build. Work well, and the mental model matches the user’s mental model, and the mental model helps the team design better.