Dinner with Don Norman and Mark Billinghurst

Don's New Zealand tour brought him to Christchurch today to do a public lecture and spend some time with the guys at the hitlabNZ. Mark Billinghurst invited me along to the hitlab early so we could take a look around.

I was most impressed with the projects they are doing there. The lab seems to have a strong track record of turning out commercial projects in fast timescales and for low cost. Even more impressive is the robustness of their augmented reality exhibts which are destined for high volume public usage, such as in museums. Very impressive stuff.
 

 
Having been a fan of Don's for 10 years or more it was great to have the opportunity to hear him talk again, and nice that he varied his talk a bit from the one he gave at APCHI last week - even managing to mention number 8 wire! After the talk we asked if they had dinner plans and managed to go eat with them. Fantastic. Don was happy to autograph my copy of POET, perhaps his most famous book, which he apparently wrote in about a month during his sabbatical in Cambridge (UK), his wife and editor, Julie explained. A really nice and memorable evening.