In November I will be attending the Usability Week organized by the Nielsen-Norman Group (this year in London).
I spent quite some time during the past 9 months looking for good training opportunities in UX in Europe. I was not very lucky with a couple of events that I wanted to attend, especially the UX Intensive by Adaptive Path in Amsterdam, that I missed by a hair¹. But I’ll try again next year.
In the meanwhile I’m pretty satisfied with my choice, having identified the workshops I’ll follow for the usability week (Interaction design, Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability and Information Architecture).
I was so excited to have this experience that the only possible small drawback in my mind was the annoying question of meals. I discovered a year ago that I’m gluten-intolerant – not coeliac yet, but still a severe intolerance. Every trip or plan from that moment on has become a bit of a challenge even with my impressive organizational skills. 😉
This time I was slightly confident that the workshop, being in London (where gluten-intolerance is widely known and appropriate menus are commonly offered), would offer me at least a choice for the meals included in the event (breaks and lunches). I wrote to the organizer asking reassurance about it and the response was way beyond my expectations: not only they assured me that gluten-free meals could be provided but they put the head-chef directly in touch with me to agree on a menu for the whole week! 🙂
This might sound silly to you, but I can assure you that when you’re dealing with bothering dietary restrictions every time someone lend you the smallest helping hand you feel absolutely grateful and cheerful. Imagine having had the opportunity to choose a personalized menu for a whole week!
If only I needed another reason for being excited and convinced about my choice with this training, now I have it. It seems they started with the right foot already.
1 Freely translated from the Italian figure of speech "per un pelo", meaning by a whisker -actually, by a hair does exist in English... Who would have thought!
raffiro 