“Jumping the shark” refers to the episode on the 60’s TV series Happy Days where Fonzie water skis, with his leather jacket on of course, hits a ramp, and successfully jumps over an area where a shark is swimming. To put this idea into proper context:

Shows that have “jumped the shark” are typically deemed to have passed their peak.

I’ve been talking with members of the IA Institute and colleagues on Boxes and Arrows almost weekly since returning from the IDEA conference about a variety of initiatives.

In particular, @chrispalle and @chrissieb and I were talking on iChat about how when meet-ups and other events fall apart no one takes the time to reflect on why the event may have “jumped the shark”.

There is opportunity when things stop working. There is a chance to connect with others and build something even greater from an event, application, or theory that no longer holds value in the eyes of the community for which it was formed.

In all of the people I’ve interviewed this year I’ve found those who are well known in their industries for their ideas all have one thing in common: they’ve tried; failed; and learned to build better. They take the time to reflect, accept responsibility, and learn from their mistakes.

It’s not always possible to see when something is about to take that fateful voyage over the shark, but it is possible to pick up the pieces and create the next great event, application, or theory that could change the way we perceive the world around us.

My first meeting with Indi Young was at the MX Conference put on by Adaptive Path earlier this year. I then had the opportunity to interview her at UX Week for the Boxes and Arrows Podcast; sharing ideas and insights from her workshop “Unpacking Stories to Serve People Better“.

Indi Young’s work spans a number of decades – from the mid-1980’s, when the desktop metaphor was replacing command line and menu-based systems; to the mid-1990s, when the Web first toddled onto the scene; to the present day where designers work to create rich user experience. After 10 years of consulting, Indi founded Adaptive Path with six other partners, all hoping to spread good design principles around the world, thereby making the user’s experience easier for people everywhere. Indi is widely known for Mental Models, which have helped both start-ups and large corporations discover and support customer behaviors they didn’t think to previously explore. She has written a book on this subject entitled: Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior, published by Rosenfeld Media. Indi is now an independent consultant, conducting mental model workshops, and mentoring.

I blogged recently about the characteristics of Persuasive Design. The six elements of this process included:

1. Understand Decision Making
2. Understand Emotion
3. Create Persuasive Interactions
4. Create Persuasive Visual Design
5. Create Persuasive Content Design
6. Design Guided Paths

I find it interesting that the top two elements in this process are to “Understand” both “Decision Making” and “Emotion” as these are ultimately the purpose of a Mental Model; to “understand” the who; what; when; where; why; and how people engage in any product or service.

Mental Models aid in the development of meaningful Personas; visualize behavior patterns that illustrate both process and purpose; and allow all members of the team to share ideas and innovate based on the actions of the people for whom they are designing.

While on Twitter I came across this great post about Persuasive Design by User Experience Analyst Lauren Martin. She shares her recent experience attending a presentation by Spencer Gerrol (Human Factors International) in Atlanta entitled “Beyond Usability: The Science of Persuasive Design”:

Usability, Gerrol summarized, is making it easier to get somewhere or do something. Persuasion is making the user want to get there, or perform the task in the first place. Without persuasion, simply making something easy to do, doesn’t necessarily make it something people want to do.

I would encourage you to read her entire blog post, but a quick summary of the main points around the elements of Persuasive Design include:

1. Understand Decision Making
2. Understand Emotion
3. Create Persuasive Interactions
4. Create Persuasive Visual Design
5. Create Persuasive Content Design
6. Design Guided Paths

It’s interesting, I had been doing Information Architecture for years prior to starting my own consultancy; just never put a label to it. (Pardon the really bad pun!) Over the years, I’ve found that the process is more important than the title.

Persuasive Design is critical to understand, in my opinion, because nobody except those within your specific discipline care how things get done; as long as those for whom we are designing are passionate about the results.

Thank you for sharing your experiences Lauren and I look forward to reading more from your Blog in the future!

This is the first of a four part series I’m producing about how different generations use technology from websites to cell phones to gaming systems.

We’re at a challenging time in our history. We face a global economic crisis; the largest generation in North American history, and the last one to work for a single organization their whole career, retiring; combined with a way of doing business that blows away traditional ROI measures.

And yet, there are amazing opportunities to learn and share like never before!

We have the capacity to innovate and build even greater products and services, by actively listening to our clients and colleagues, for whom they are intended.

Many thanks to Mrs. Anne Marie Kirby and all of the students in her Grade 6 class for allowing me the opportunity to learn from, and share your ideas, with the global community.

If you’re in Sydney Australia, be sure to get get tickets for Web-Blast ‘08 on December 5th. Tickets are limited so be sure to sign up soon!

Shortly after my last conversation with Daniel Szuc about User Experience in China, Daniel was kind enough to introduce me to Ginny Redish who presented at User Friendly 2008.

Ginny was kind enough to send me a signed copy of her book, Letting Go of the Words – Creating Web Content that Works. We’ll be talking about the ideas within her book and recent experiences and conversations with other professionals around the world on a future podcast.