How do you understand Twitter?: Analyzing mental models, understanding and learning about complex interactive systems

Abstract

The aim of this investigation is to identify and understand the relations between the people's mental models and their performance and usability perception about a complex interactive system (Twitter). Our study includes the participation of thirty college students where each of them was asked to perform a number of activities with Twitter, and to draw graphical representations of the mental model about it. The participants have either none or at least a year of expertise using Twitter. We identified three typical types of mental models used by participants to describe Twitter and found that the level of expertise had a major impact on performance rather than the mental model style defining the understanding about the system. Furthermore, and in contrast, we found that usability perception was affected by the level of expertise. © 2013 Springer International Publishing.