here's what I started with
I’ve been working the last few weeks on a mental model for the Pool project.. and it seems to be bearing fruit.
One thing that really surprises me (and I’m actually surprised that I’m surprised) is how the shift from working in text outline to making the thing visual really helps the whole concept start to gel.
Back when I did the workshop with Indi on working with mental models, she said there was usually a time when you’re freaking out that it’s not going to work.. well that was last week. This week, as I moved from a mix of google spreadsheets, to excel to omni outliner (laptop HD failed [again!!] and I am now on a pc at home and an iMac at work) I’ve really started to feel the affordances each tool has, and so as I opened my omni outliner files in omnigraffle I breathed a sigh of relief; at last here I am working with a visual representation!
and so I immediately started to tweak it. and that’s where I got surprised.
I’d been so used to the rigorous process of combing transcripts, aggregating atomic tasks, aggregating those into groups and then thinking about mental spaces that I’d actually missed a key element in the model. This only became apparent when I laid it out visually.
I think the next step for me will be to get away from the machine and play with these ideas physically, with post-its or similar. Why I feel a little silly (why not do that in the forst place?) I don’t think I could have done that until I sat down and boiled all the combed behaviours into the format I have now.
Each process and working environment introduces its own artifacts. The trick is to pick which kind of artifacts will be helpful, and when. Then go with that environment, for that part of the project.
