The User Experience

The title of this blog is one of many phrases I got sick of hearing while attending the Adobe MAX conference in Chicago earlier this month. Others included "integration" (mixed with a variety of other words), "client-side," "runtime," and "Adobe is the king of the world."

Okay, I didn't actually hear that last one, but that was the general point of the conference, so I "sensed" it enough. In fact, many of the workshops and lectures I attended seemed to offer more of that sentiment than actual "information," but some of them offered some new tricks and tips that I have been able to use in my job and my creative life.

One of several Adobe pep rallies- this one was the unveiling of new products to the crowd of eager geeks (of which I was one- when I learned that Flash may start "integrating" inverse kinematics tools in their product, the animation nerd in me got all choked up).

I got so bored in one of my morning workshops that I encrypted my notes to keep from dozing off:


Indeed, I am a geek among geeks.

I also got a little sick of filling out surveys every half hour (that is NOT an exaggeration) and eating potatoes. The potato thing got so bad that one of the parties featured potatoes in a martini glass. Them's fancy taters!

To be fair, I won a great book on Flash video and learned how to shave time off of some of my projects. Mostly, though, I just received confirmation that I do things right. Oh, and I also got to attend an over-the-top party, the theme of which, from what I could gather, was "80's pop/geek culture and stuff that makes you go, 'oh yeah, I remember that!'"

BMX bikers and skateboarders show the crowd what can be done when you are not sitting in front of a computer all day:

A giant game of "Operation" (oh yeah, I remember that!):

Oh yeah! I had one of these:


And these (things are cooler when they are big):

Remember this movie (I was deemed too intoxicated to go back to the future)?

And the Fusion engine from the sequel (beer make car go fast):

This conference really was just kind of over-the-top for the most part. The conference center employees revealed to me that it cost half a million dollars just to unveil the new products to the crowd- I can't imagine how much the party cost. Shareholders take note. Ahem.

I had fun, though:

Arriving at the party.

Preparing for the Segway obstacle course

The band. I actually like these guys. They did a swing version of the Spongebob Squarepants theme song and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.

Jell-O shots. Without alcohol. Still pretty, though.

This was a huge virtual graffiti wall connected to Wii remotes. You worked with another player to create your wall and then a picture of the wall was sent to flickr. But I took my own picture: