\n\n

A mental model is not useful until you've worked something through it.

\n\n

Most collections of mental models on the web are reading material — encyclopaedic lists of concepts you're supposed to internalise. You read about the Eisenhower Matrix. You nod. You close the tab.

\n\n

What's missing is the instrument. The value isn't in knowing what a 2×2 matrix is — it's in dragging your actual tasks into quadrants and confronting what falls where. It's in pulling scope up on the Iron Triangle and watching cost bulge. It's in writing \"how would I guarantee failure?\" and seeing the inversions stare back at you.

\n\n

This project builds the interactive versions. Each model is a self-contained, visual tool. Not a template. Not a description with a diagram. A thing you use.

\n\n

\n 01\n

Visual first

The model is the interface, not an illustration beside a form. The visual representation dominates the viewport. If you removed all the text inputs, the shape of the model should still be legible.

\n 02\n

Direct manipulation

Drag, place, weigh, connect. No \"fill in the form, click submit, see the result.\" The act of manipulating the model is the thinking. Moving a chip between Eisenhower quadrants is a decision. Sliding the Iron Triangle is a confrontation with constraints.

\n 03\n

Malleable

The tool adapts to your problem, not the reverse. Editable labels, user-defined axes, flexible structures. The Position Map doesn't prescribe what the axes mean — you do, and in naming them, you create the model.

\n 04\n

Shareable via URL

All state lives in hash parameters. Copy the URL, share the thought. No accounts, no databases, no friction. The URL is the save file. A mental model shared is an argument made visible.

\n 05\n

Mobile first

Not as a responsive checkbox, but as a design constraint. Touch targets, thumb zones, single-column default. The constraint forces clarity — information density that earns its space. The desktop version gains from mobile constraints, not the other way around.

\n\n

What this is not

Not an encyclopedia. We don't explain 100 models. We build instruments.

Not a SaaS. No accounts, no pricing, no data capture.

Not templates. You don't fill in a form and get a PDF. You manipulate the model directly.

Not a course. Brief context is provided, but the tool teaches through use.

\n\n\n\n

`,\n });\n}\n","deleted","label",[177,160],"pages","permalink","https://www.val.town/x/c15r/mental-models/code/pages/about.ts","extension","ts","actionData","errors"]