Our team got to go to HXR – Health Experience Refactored – in Boston. It’s awesome to have the bandwidth to get out and learn!
I spent the first day in a game design/behavior change workshop. The kids thought I must have had a party all day since Link was on the screen. The princess is a very boring game, and the potty badge demonstrated over-hyping with badges (although there would be PLENTY of hype around here if the last little Bond would earn that one).
Scheduling conflicts left our team at two people by the time we had to pitch our game. My partner ended up being a nutritionist who is famous for taking on Monster drinks. I’m reading her kid nutrition books now–they’re very good. We made up an awesome game where people would take pictures of their food and the app would evaluate the colorfulness (imagine chicken fingers & fries vs a veggie omelet, color-wise) and give the user a score. Maybe less boring than a food journal? We also threw in some crowd-shaming features as an April Fool’s joke.
We went to a little Italian restaurant by Hanover Street & then to a bakery for honest to goodness awesome cannoli (sigh). The second night was the required Bahston lahbstah.
The hotel was under construction…it’ll be beautiful someday, but really some weird stuff. Amy’s room was so tiny! The doors were just hideous, and mine didn’t work with the key. Both nights I was stuck out in the hall waiting for them to come let me in. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Will you give me a new key?
Hotel Dude: No.
Me: How will I get back into my room?
Hotel Dude: The doors are really old. Just squat down on the ground and wiggle it.
There was a ton of awesome learning, being around stereotypical design types (beards & MacBooks, my friends), and great presentations (they are all designers, natch). But this is my personal blog, so I don’t have to talk about work. There was some awesomeness with Amy’s scooter, and a late flight meant that I got to ride on the beeping cart with her!
Stinkerpot 