Great article about mental models! I commend the OP on sharing their experience to really understand what people are thinking, feeling, and expecting. This is exactly how you make tools that people love to use.

> The line in the background depicts how a user is feeling at a particular gate. Might cover this in a future post.

I understand the sentiment here, but trying to map real human feelings and emotions is tricky - it's rife with personal assumptions that once visualized, always fail to capture what people really feel.

Having taught Service Design at a big design school, this was something my students would try to convince me on when crafting service blueprints and journey maps... that they could create a 'happiness' or 'sadness' curve to depict what humans feel when interacting with a product or service. It never really works very well and can end up creating a false sense of emotional superiority within the designer's mind. Approach with caution!