High-technology prototyping becomes more important as the problem becomes better understood, and the development cycle begins its transition to implementation. We will look at prototyping technology in a future article. Affordances are things that communicate information about the operation of a product. Affordances are often culture-specific. Icons, gestures, and sounds may also need to be translated.
Mental models are the private images that our minds use to interpret the world.
Users, on the other hand, do not have access to either of these mental models, and will of necessity develop their own. Users bring their own preconceptions and perceptual abilities to your product. They use only as much of your product as they need to, and learn only from what they use. Unpredictable or inconsistent behavior in your product will distort or even destroy a user's mental model. And remember, this user model begins to form before the user begins using your product.