A week ago from today I was flown out to Boston to attend the UI12 conference held by User Interface Engineering. The entire experience was extremely pleasant. I saw many great presentations from speakers the likes of Cameron Moll, Luke Wroblewski, Scott Berkun, Gerry McGovern, and Jared Spool.
Aside from covering an enormous amount of highly relevant and current information in four days; there were some memorable moments. After the first night of the conference I got to meet up with some folks from the IXDA Boston and grab a beer with Andy Budd, and Luke Wroblewski. The next day Jared Spool gave a keynote lecture on magic as an analogy that UI designers are working to create illusions to enhance the user experience just as magicians are working to create illusions to amaze their audiences. Somehow I found myself on stage during the keynote to have my head shrunk after being randomly selected by Jared. I didn’t volunteer for that one.
Overall, I can’t recommend the conference highly enough. It was a great experience. Unlike SXSW, which is basically a huge party for geeks nowadays, I learned a lot about my profession and the industry I work in. Over the course of the upcoming week I plan on posting some takeaways from the different sessions I attended. Stay tuned!