Cognitive mapping, mind mapping, and concept mapping are three powerful visual-mapping strategies for organizing, communicating, and retaining knowledge. They help us lay out complex ideas, processes, and recognize patterns and relationships. 

Cognitive maps, mind maps, and concept maps look and feel similar; this similarity causes confusion. They are three different ways of visualizing a mental model — whether it belongs to the designer, the researcher, or the user. Each has its strengths and benefits. This article is a comparison of these three popular types of diagramming and their uses in UX.

Cognitive Maps

Cognitive maps are the umbrella term for all visual representations of mental models. All mapping techniques described in this article are instances of cognitive maps. 

Definition: A cognitive map is any visual representation of a person’s (or a group’s) mental model for a given process or concept.

Cognitive maps have no visual rules that they need to obey: there is no restriction on how the concepts and the relationships between them are visually represented.

History

The idea of cognitive map originates from the work of the psychologist Edward Tolman, who is famous for his studies of how rats learned to navigate mazes. In psychology, it has a strong spatial connotation — cognitive maps usually refer to the representation of a space (e.g., a maze) in the brain. Cognitive maps have since been used in a range of fields; Colin Eden, an operations researcher, used the term in a broader sense to refer to a mental model representation of any type of process or concept (whether spatial or not). 

Example of a Cognitive Map
Cognitive mapping is free-form and can include numerous visualization methods, including bulleted lists, flowcharts, concept diagramming, or affinity mapping. Though the above example is digital (and thus high-fidelity), cognitive maps are often low-fidelity and created with paper, pen, and sticky notes.  

Characteristics 

  • Diverse in nature and purpose. Cognitive mapping is used in a broad range of disciplines for a variety of purposes. Cognitive maps are the most general type of mental-model visualization. 
  • No restrictions on structure or form. Cognitive maps do not have to adhere to a specific format. Thus, they are often abstract and have no consistent hierarchy. They are flexible and can accommodate a wide set of concepts or situations that need to be represented. 

Uses in UX

  • Externalize knowledge. Visualizations (of any kind) aid in cognitive processing; they can help us refine our thinking, breakdown ideas, and capture thoughts. For example, a visualization becomes a helpful tool for describing where a new feature is accessible or when a new team member is onboarded to  a new complex system.  
  • Identify themes across different concepts. Presenting concepts in a visual format can surface new patterns and connections. In our DesignOps research, we asked participants to create a cognitive map of the organizational structures in their companies. After mapping, they were able to identify similarities (like team makeup, pain points, or bottlenecks) across siloed teams.  
  • Mental-model elicitation. Cognitive mapping can help UX researchers understand users’ mental models of a system or of a process. This understanding can be crucial when researching complex systems or even when embarking in the design of a new product.  Mental-model elicitation is usually carried out through individual interviews in which the participant builds a visual representation of her mental model of the research topic.  The resulting cognitive map represents a tangible representation of the participant’s thoughts and can serve as a conversation prompt for the facilitator. Several such maps can be clustered based on their characteristics; these categorizations can guide the design process. 

The next two sections describe two more-constrained types of cognitive maps: mind maps and concept maps.

Mind Maps 

Mind maps are the most simplistic, and thus straightforward type of cognitive maps. They have a clear hierarchy and format, and they are relatively quick to create and consume. 

Definition: A mind map is a tree that represents a central topic and its subtopics. 

History

The core characteristics of mind maps are rooted in the development of semantic networks, a 1950s’ technique for representing knowledge. In 1974, British author Tony Buzan popularized the term 'mind mapping.' 

Example of a Mind Map
Mind maps have a central parent topic, with nodes that branch outwards towards the peripheral. 

Characteristics

  • Clear organization and structure. Mind maps are restricted to tree structures. They have clear, directed flows outward from the tree root to its leaves. 
  • One central topic. In mind maps, all nodes (except the tree root) have only one parent node. Each node can have children corresponding to that concept’s subtopics. Every concept in a mind map can be traced directly back to the root topic.
  • No definition of relationships. There is no distinction between different types of relationships among nodes — all the edges in the tree are represented in the same way and are unlabeled. 

Uses in UX 

Mind maps help organize a collection of information connected to a single topic and structure it in a systematic, meaningful way. In UX, they are helpful when doing categorical ideation work, such as: 

  • Breaking-down components on a specific webpage — for example, in order to determine the mini-IA of the page
  • Planning subject topics within a website (for example, our article topics on nngroup.com)
  • Mapping information covered in an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) or privacy policy

Concept Maps

Concept maps are a more complex version of mind maps. They place an emphasis on identifying the relationships between topics. Additionally, a node in a concept map can have several parents (whereas a node in a mind map will have just one).

Definition: A concept map is a graph in which nodes represent concepts and are related through labeled, directed edges that illustrate relationships between them. 

History 

Concept mapping was developed in the 1970s by American professor Joseph Novak to help teachers explain complex topics in order to facilitate  learning, retaining, and relating these new topics to existing knowledge. 

Example of a Concept Map
Concepts maps are read top down; unlike with mind maps, a node can have multiple parents and the edges are labeled to indicate relationships between nodes.

Characteristics: 

  • Each node can have more than one parent (i.e., one node pointing to it). While each mind map node has only one parent, a node in a concept map can have several parents. Thus, nodes in a concept map are often more interconnected than nodes in mind maps, which makes concept maps well suited for describing complex interconcept relationships. 
  • Graph edges are directed and labeled with the names of the relationships between the nodes they connect. Each edge illustrates a specific relationship (and usually is labeled with a verb or preposition that captures it).

Uses in UX

Concept maps help visualize complex concepts that are interconnected in various ways. They can support multiple perspectives and ways of looking at the same problem and can be used to:

  • Develop a holistic picture of a set of concepts and their interconcept relationships, such as:
    • Data  
    • Organizational operations
  • Connect concepts with action. Concept mapping emphasizes relationships by linking one idea to another with verbs. This characteristic is useful when analyzing a problem (the maps often surface undiscovered causes and effects). By visualizing the content as a web, it becomes easy to follow a ‘trail’ of relationships and thus identify systemic solutions. 

The maps can be created individually or in a group (if the purpose is to create a shared understanding of an internal process, for example.) 

Methods Compared 

When it comes to representing physical space, there are many types of possible maps:  topographic maps, geologic maps, pedestrian maps, street maps, and so on. They are all flat representations of the surface of the earth, but highlight different properties of this surface. Cartographers apply different guidelines for designing a hiking map of a park, a highway map of a state, or a political map  of a continent. 

Like the different maps of the earth, all types of cognitive maps are in some ways the same. 

UX practitioners must be cartographers of UX maps — adapting format and structure to best suit the needs and context of the map they are creating. Use this table as a quick guide to compare mind maps, concept maps, and cognitive maps.  

  Mind Map Concept Map Cognitive Map
Purpose Expansion of a single topic Explore relationships among several concepts  Capture a process or dynamic ecosystem in free-form
Defining Characteristic One primary, single center; one parent per node 

Labeled relationships between nodes; multiple parents per node

 Lack of any consistent structure; mixed forms (list, diagram, graph, flowchart)
Adaptability  Low Low to Medium High

 

To simplify when to use what, imagine introducing a new My Account view into a website. 

A mind map could be used to map the different sections, and corresponding sub-sections of content that would be within the My Account page. 

A concept map could map the larger website as a whole, and the different entry points that the user could use to access My Account, combined with what data could be exported or shared where. 

A cognitive map could be constructed in a user interview (by the participant) to uncover a participant’s current processes, mental models, and considerations for accessing and sharing personal account information.

Conclusion

The three maps above are not the same as flowcharts, so an enumeration of steps should not be fit for a map. However, there are diverse benefits from visualizing a concept, idea, or process, whether it be through a cognitive map, mind map, or concept map, and both individually or amongst a team: 

  • Provides a tangible visual abstract thoughts 
  • Communicates relationships or patterns between concepts  
  • Deepens our knowledge and understanding of a specific topic or concept 
  • Helps us integrate new ideas with existing systems
  • Synthesizes a complex ecosystem into a single visualization that can be shared

Taking fuzzy, abstract concepts and making them tangible enhance team communication and creates common ground. It’s also make it easy for a team member to immediately spot something on the map and say, “that’s not right.” Maybe your colleague is right, and something wasn’t captured correctly. Or maybe your colleague is wrong, and the map uncovers a misconception that would have otherwise lead to friction later in the project. Either way, the mapping exercise pinpointed something that required further discussion, which is far more efficient in the long run than proceeding on a project with a misaligned understanding.

Cognitive maps, mind maps, and concept maps ultimately enhance our cognitive understanding. Using one technique over another will not make or break a project. Ideally, a combination of all three will be used as needed at different points in your process, depending on your needs.  

 

References 

Buzan, T. (1993) The Mind Map Book. London: BBC Books

Eden, C. (1988) “Cognitive mapping”, European Journal of Operational Research, 36:1-13

Eppler, Martin J. (2006) “A Comparison between Concept Maps, Mind Maps, Conceptual Diagrams, and Visual Metaphors as Complementary Tools for Knowledge Construction and Sharing.” Information Visualization. Palgrave Journals. 

Kelly, G.A., (1995) The psychology of personal constructs. New York: Norton.

Novak, J.D., Gowin, D. B. (1984). Learning How to Learn. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tolman, Edward C. (July 1948). "Cognitive maps in rats and men". Psychological Review.