Some months ago a dear friend and I started thinking about a blog that could speak and listen to the Italian IxD community.
We believe there is a growing potential in this discipline but most people still tend to strive on their own, often ashamed to take part to the international discussions. The basic idea is to generate discussions on worldwide topics and to help the local community to express and build a constructive dialogue. Check out the site or follow our tweets.
Probably you realize this is northern Europe when a/c is still running with an outside temperature of 20C.
Summer seems already over since last week, which is great for my cold weather fanatism; though I might move back and forth to super-humid Milan over weekends. Hope I’ll manage to spend some long consecutive days here in Amsterdam. Great city, design-filled environments and a cool project to carry on.
The only really serious objective at the moment is to find some better food -which means neither fries nor cheese!
A friend dropped me some lines and a link to his new business website. He runs a small but well know food and wine shop in the heart of Tuscany. I won’t say much on the website and the disputable price he was charged for it. But the lack of basic interaction principles made me think on the role of IxD in Italy.
The majority of people who have a vague idea what we are talking about, still believes interaction design is web design. Some others have heard of usability and tend to use this word as much as they can. The truth is almost all clients, tech people and unfortunately many designers (this hurts me the most) still have difficulties defining how I earn my money.
It happens in many countries; true! But explaining what I do, is getting easier in the US, Northern Europe and recently Asia; so, why is Italy always the last to get things? Maybe it’s our traditional laziness; the lack of innovation and investments (!); the impoverishment of our universities; or the fact that none of us -few Italian interaction designers- make a real effort to promote, consolidate and push this job beyond the boundaries of ignorance.
The immediate consequences of this missing culture are low quality products and services; and a diffused mistrust in IxD as an improvement for experiences (for users) and incomes (for business). And the paradox is that a growing number of artful agencies use the expressions interactive/user experience/interaction/usability/interface/blah blah blah, just to sell better branding and advertising skills -or no skill at all. The result is -when present- a distorted idea of IxD.
Today, though rare oasis of happiness in the academic and professional world exist, the best Italian designs often come from smart visual and web designers: people with an eye on interaction issues but not fully trained for that.
So, who are the Italian cool IxD people and studios? Where is the hope to achieve the role we should have in the design process? Should we raise our voice? Would a register that defines the differences in similar disciplines and that admits only certified professionals help? Why are online communities and groups on IxD failing?
To tell you the truth I’ve seen a few things changing in the last years; but, for the time being, I still see seeds that sprout in the desert and then are carried away to enrich other lands.
Today I’ve realized I posted only five times in 2010 and my latest update was 102 days ago. I know, it’s really the worst thing it can happen to a blog!!
I think it’s time to face the real effort I want to put in these pages from now on. For the time being I can fool myself saying I was too busy for leaving some notes. Actually -over the last three months- I quit my job, I took a solo trip across Japan going on a tech detox and I joined the ‘pond’ at frog design. All big changes I needed. As soon as possible.
Quitting was the toughest part but at some point I really felt it was time to move on. Many thanks to all the people I’ve shared wonderful moments with. Truly.
Then came Japan with thoughtful days and sleepful nights. From Tokyo to Hokkaido, back through Kansai and down to Hiroshima: my first and extraordinary wandering alone experience. I spent my days hiking, looking at a very hybrid culture and sketching my diary. Definitely the best recovery I could have after a one year intensive effort on a huge project.
The final redemption came at frog: interesting people, new projects, and a great design environment. I’m still taking my first steps here but I’m super excited about the change. Hope to share and learn as much as I can. And I also hope to give more news about some of last year’s resolutions I’m carrying on (or at least to maintain the essential one: posting on this blog!).
Last time I took part to a great design talk I was attending the Design Critique course at IUAV. Since then just Enzo Mari‘s words at DesignLibrary Milan struck me again. And this is definitely the oddest shortcut as Mari introduced himself saying: “I have no degrees and luckily I was not slaughtered in schools”.
It quickly became a rant against academics, marketing and information technologies. I found it provocative and inspiring: he actually focused on what most of us has been thinking since the first school projects. Is design responding to real needs? Are we commercial slaves? Does the world actually need more designers?
One of Mari’s solutions was going back to the soil and I agree: the Earth is what permits everything we have. We should invest in it. But I think this has to happen with enlightened humans who have studied and know as much as they can; we need people who have a solid thinking and a large culture. And again, I firmly believe digital technologies can help diffuse and speed this process.
What Mari was saying should not be literally translated but paraphrased as a call for simplicity and investments on people and environment before any form of business. Interaction designers are nowadays among the ones who have to shape the future of human beings. I think we cannot do this job without a philosophical approach: we need to design for growth and to convince who runs the business that it’s not always time to earn.
We should always keep in mind that our mission is not getting richer, but making life nicer and more efficient.
Have you ever thought which is the human most important concept? When I was in high school I had no real interest in philosophy but no need to be a geek to understand when we talk about human life we are actually talking about time. All of us start a path one day: we all go through a slow and progressive physical decay. It’s a continuous flow, no back or forward: this is time. Or if you prefer it, we could say our life is like a container that is filled by time at any point. But how do we use such content? How can we influence the flow? Answers to these questions are the ways we live our lives.
Personally I’ve always been in a rush, often thinking I’m late for something, feeling I’ve wasted too much of the flow I’ve been allowed to go through; and I constantly find myself asking if there is a secret to improve such content-container relation?
A couple of days a go I was talking to a friend and colleague: we were really pleading for 36 hours days. Both of us argued we are having less and less time to read; tons of information to be processed, huge archives of ‘must see’ growing day by day and -as the flow goes on- we constantly feel we are missing things; the result is a strained life. It might be the side effect of hyperconnectivity or maybe else but what matters -again- is the flow going on.
It took me years -and this last chat was kind of inspiring- but I think now I’ve finally found not one but three ways to cheat on time: planning, rethinking unused parts of the flow, relaxing.
Scheduling our lives is the only way we can improve efficiency allowing ourselves to know what we can do at its best and what we are going to miss. Early rising gives us more and fresher time for things we love to do. Considering relax as a fundamental part of the planning contributes to a balanced and thoroughly happy life.
To be honest I’m still not sure I’m on the right way to optimize my flow but I’m trying to do my best. This post, for instance, is the product of an increased control over morning sleep.
After a really dull week and a lot of rain, I loved waking up today and having a super-sunny brunch in my kitchen (as you can see from my window shot). Curious thing, yesterday night I was watching this documentary on Aztecs and how they sacrificed human beings to have their Sun god shining every morning. And I have no idea why but I can’t stop thinking of how ethics changes over cultures and ages being always so perfect while you live it.
Anyhow, no matter the sun and the human sacrifices, I’m in a great mood today: we are at the end of phase#1 of the big project I’m following at work (updates soon); I’m totally and happily dipped in my extra-work objectives (in this case it might take a while to reveal you what I’m working on); my football team overcame its opponents in a great match; I’m going to IKEA to buy the living-room new lamp; but more than anything else, I’m finally not tired for the weekend!
July was a pretty intense month. It started with one of the most interesting professional experiences I’ve ever had: a three-days workshop with Kara Pernice from Nielsen Norman Group (SF, USA). It’s been a great time talking about usability and getting our UCG intranet design right with the help of a really smart professional.
After some quick prototyping, a couple of weeks ago we tested our concept with Italian users (and we also inaugurated our renewed usability lab in the office). I think it went fine but most of all I have to say I enjoyed testing again. On this matter I really appreciated a dear friend’s advise -actually from the blog of Whitney Hess- which I strongly recommend to read. Some things might look obvious but they are so important that it’s always good to stress them!
However, our testing went on in Vienna, Munich and Warsaw too. The last ten days were of real commuting by plane and I definitely worsened my nutrient balance BUT I think we got some great indications for the project. And that’s also a reason why I cannot and I don’t want to leave now. Victor Hugo once said “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come”. Even if it is August I would say…
Have a great summer!
A couple of weeks ago I was back at my first Univeristy. Somehow I felt like I never moved away from there though I actually found new premises and more strangers than friends. I remember being around there almost ten years ago: a sleepy freshman looking for his first class room; and now I was anxiously walking along the corridors to find my students. When I found the room I felt relieved: I set my computer, I switched on the projector and it still seemed like I was going to give a simple speech or to meet some clients; then people started entering the room -a little bit surprised by this young and new teacher- and they greeted me with a quite formal “Buongiorno”. I admit it was weird but in a few minutes I started talking and all these feelings vanished. All of a sudden I realized the four hours lesson was over!
The idea was to refresh some methodological issues and to present a couple of case studies from our company. I have to thank one of my bosses -who is running the course for both undergrad and grad students of the IxD programme at UniSi. He gave me the chance to show some important projects I’ve been working on and it was a way to go back to some pure theory too. I’m still not sure if it was interesting for the dozen people who followed me: I can’t guess their feelings but they seemed too shy and well educated to show some criticism. Chatting with them during a break, I was really glad to see some already had early enterprenaurial initiatives going on! A super positive approach: I’ve always thought that bringing real life into academy is something crucial. That’s what I also tried to stress during my speech; and it will definitely be what I’ll push if I’ll ever have my own class in the future. Who knows…
