UX Intensive Day 3 – Interaction Design
Day 3 has come and gone, and it was a FULL day of information. While the previous two days had booklets with about 140-150 pages of slides, the Interaction Design presentation led by guru Dan Saffer and Kim Lenox was a whopping 300+ pages. But it was worth it – lots of great information on how to not only figure out the best interactions for sites, but how to convey those ideas to the decision makes so that they’ll understand that we know more than them see the wisdom of the expertise we are offering. Dan and Kim did a tag-team presentation that offered a good mix of styles with the content. I’ll be damned how I’m going to convey the last 3 days of info plus today’s presentation (IA) into a single 2-hour presentation to my team, though.
Got to meet a lot of great people, too. We had lunch with a Microsoft rep (David Crow) at lunch, and he presented some interesting insights into how they look at the work and do things there, things that most of us don’t think about or hear. I’m not always a fan of the things that Microsoft does with their software (non-standards compliance on IE, for example), but I think that they take a lot of grief that they shouldn’t necessarily get. Petter – who was very even-keeled about the company and the world view – gave us some background that really points out that for all of the ‘evil Microsoft’ commentary out there, they are trying to do a lot of really cool things with computing, networking, etc. If nothing else, there’s no doubt that they are always thinking of new things and pushing the boundaries.
Happies
Even better was that last night’s happies were presented by Microsoft at Milestones on Hamilton Street. They were giving away some door prizes, which I didn’t win (XBox 360, software, books), and we were getting free drinks. Big drinks. A lot of people were … shall we say, fueled up by the happy hour. Milestones was a great place and the appetizers were delicious (meatloaf mini-hamburgers, parmesan crisps with some sort of cheese spread, prosciutto-wrapped figs, chicken spears). I also tried two good beers – Granville Island Lager and an Dark Irish which may or may not have been from Granville – I’m not sure. Overall, I’ve gotten to try quite a few different beers while I’ve been here and most have been decent, including almost all of the Granville ones. Too bad that they are local…
In addition to the inebriations, there were quite a few great conversations with fellow attendees from all over the world, including a gentleman from Brazil, a number of people from Ottowa, Vancouver and Montreal, and of course, people from all over the U.S. Whether it was work talk (which I tried to avoid to a degree but still crept in on multiple occasions, talks with Dan about hiking throughout Tennessee, hockey talk about the good ‘ol days of the Flyers (it seems that Ron Hextall is generally well regarded by most hockey fans), or talking with Jill about the merits of Ween, Radiohead and Phish, I had a good time meeting people and learning about different areas of the country (I REALLY want to hike in the Great Smokies, now).
Meeting Greg
After the happies, I skipped the planned dinner since I was already a half-hour late and went to grab some beer to meet up with a fellow Flickrer Greg7. I have to admit that I was surprised by how much American swill was available there, but I opted for a 6-pack of Granville Island Winter Ale (which was a fantastic beer with a dark color and a delicious semi-sweet flavor that had hints of what I think was chocolate, almond and vanilla). I then met up with Greg and went to his apartment to catch up and chat. He’s a really great guy, friendly and open and welcoming. We chatted about birding, Flickr friends and life in the U.S. and Canada. We drank a few beers and chatted for a while, making plans for us to get together on Friday so that I could see the great outdoors of Vancouver. I’m psyched to go – I just needed to get through Day 4…
