Gaia Zuccaro
I am a graphic and web designer, as well as an UX designer, font fetishist and obsessed by every kind of human-machine interaction. I love Italian trash music, good food, crowded metropolis.
When your friends or parents ask to you what job do you do, how do you answer?
It really depends on the moment and on the context, however, in most of the cases I would just answer that “I design web pages and smartphone applications”. Somebody understands while somebody doesn’t. But I do not really care about that.
What is your background, how did you train?
Immediately after finishing high school I entered a graphic design school (accademia delle arti e Nuove Tecnologie in Rome), attending a two-year course, during which I learnt the main notions of basic graphic design and offline communication. In 2000 internet was not really whithin everyone’s reach yet and surely it was not part of the educational aims of the time. I have studied all the things I know about web and interaction design subsequently and autonomously, but I believe I would never have had the chance of comprehending totally these new disciplines if I hadn’t had behind me the years of my traditional studies about communication.
What the web can do to make this world a better place? How did the web improve your life( if it did)?
I truly believe the web, and along with it all the expressions of its technology, could improve our life. In the words of Riccardo Luna, who far back studies internet and innovation, as a general category: “internet is not made of monads: internet is the first weapon of mass-construction”. The web has built a new economical model, a new way of studying and working, a new way of interacting with others. Using Luna’s words again: “Internet is the place where ideas meet and make sex”
Can you show us three examples of interface that in your opinion improved human life?
Obviously the list could be very long, but I believe huge improvements and the best goals in the interface field were reached by very simple, though essential objects in everyday life. Hence, I’d say: fork, handles and the first iOs mac.
On quora.com, time ago there was a long discussion in answer to the question “what is the most intuitive interface ever created?”; according to Felipe Rocha it is the nipple, in your opinion instead? (http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-intuitive-interfaces-ever-created).
Felipe’s one is a really good input ! but I believe it to be more provocative than truthful.
As far as I am concerned, I think there is no interface which would be absolutely perfect and fully obstacle free in its usability, but for sure in Cupertino they are doing their best ever since to reach the highest levels in this discipline.
How is your work day type?
My work days vary a lot. I mostly divide myself in three different situations: I work from home, m meetings with Clients and teaching activity in the school I teach in.
What is the most stimulating and challenging project you have accomplished?
Recently Pharmawizard. This has been published in apple store … a very complex app in terms of functionality. It has been a very good challenge to make all the functionalities accessible and easily deducible even to a so large and heterogeneous public, made not only of field’s experts.
I believe it to be my most complex product in terms of UX. While in terms of UI I would indicate a couple of projects which have not been published yet, among which an app player for a music band.
What is, among the existing digital services, the one you wanted to do?
Spotify, for its ability of spreading a complex service with huge simplicity. flipboard, for the way it managed to renovate the concept of interaction with the contents and Clear for having brought a breath of fresh air in the apps and the gesture world.
Many designers commit the mistake of starting a project directly from Photoshop, is there a perfect design method? What is your approach to the creative process?
I do not think it exists a unique process and a univocal method.I have to admit that, after many years of working as a graphic designer, while I do not have to use any paper for creating a logo or a poster, as I managed to create a perfect harmony between the input, the idea and the mean, when it comes to design an app or a website, the sketch and wireframing processes are still essential to me for having a an approach which is more oriented to the user’s experience, rather than being focused only on visual experience.
The “design” is an important part of our analogic life. What is the role of the designer in our digital life?
In few years we have gone from the totally analog 1.0 world to the 3.0 one, where we speak about internet of things. I think a so rapid curve in terms of digital evolution cannot but promise and determine a role which would be, if not essential, at least of huge support for the future.
Do you believe it is important for a designer to have a deep knowledge of matters as User Experience, Interaction Design, Product Design, and Front-end development?
Absolutely yes. I think a designer cannot exempt himself from the knowledge of all the cross-referring disciplines which rotate around his role. Moreover, I think that many of these disciplines are the place of encounter and exchange between designers and developers and having the honor of finding ourselves in this common ground of communication cannot but be a determinative factor of growth and success.
In which way do you make a difference between User Interface and user experience?
The uSer interface is tangible, you see it, it relates to the field of the pleasure and of the taste. the user experience is more hidden and rather related to ergonomics than to beauty, but, as for the beautiful objects, when they are also comfortable and perfectly ergonomic the user’s satisfaction is just unique.
What is your relationship with the developers? There are people that have a relationship of continuous confrontation and other of deep friendship, where do you collocate with respect to this question?
It always depends on who you are facing. With some developers I have built a relationship of friendship and deep mutual respect. To work with a developer who exchanges his views with you means to improve and being pushed to seek better results (gigio and alberto i love u). To make war one to each other does not really lead to anything.
How do you think that your career and job will evolve in the next 5 years?
I have really no idea. And for this reason I I embraced the User experience with so much passion, because it is a territory which every day is new and unexplored and I am really happy not to know what it will be of myself and of this work in 5 years time.
A famous quotation of David Carson (noted American graphic designer) says: “Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does”. Will the User Interface Design save the world, before, at the same time, or after the graphic design?
No, for sure user experience will not save the world. Surely it saved mine.
What do you think about Dribbble? Is it a good way to get a job? What’s the best way to find a job as designer?
Dribble it’s a very good idea and I am very grateful to whom invented it, for having provided me with hundreds of ideas and inspiration. But it is a chaotic place and it is based on compulsory observation of many small details which prevent from getting the whole. And the design, the good one, needs both the points of view. For this reason when I can and find someone I like on dribbble, I bounce to his Behance portfolio or to his website, for having a complete vision of his projects. Therefore I believe that for a designer the best way of finding a job is to sinergically make use of all the means that provided by the: dribbble, behance, linkedin, but also some online and offline networking is crucial.
What book would you advice to a Junior Designer?
Don’t make me think, and The design of everyday things.
The first one, because it summarizes the unique and essential aim of our job in 4 words; the second one because it opens the mind and teaches how there is a cross-referred idea common to all design’s disciplines.
Always as far as advices: what tools for the design? What tools for the projects management ?
I am a very traditional person if it comes to design tools, hence I would say:photoshop, illustrator, and I am becoming familiar with sketch for the visual part adobe edge animate or flash per la prototyping animations
And finally, an essential fint manager as suitcase for organizing the typographical part, which for me is crucial.
As per the management I use Podio a lot, Asana, Basecamp, but also google drive for more personal projects. Not really a management tool, invisionapp.com helps me a lot while prototyping and relating with the Client.
Dribbble : https://dribbble.com/gaiazzz
Behance : https://www.behance.net/gaiazuccaro
FRONTIERSX November 12–13th, 2015, Milan, Italy
As the meeting point of design, technology and everything interactive, this year we’ll dive deep through innovation and disruption in Banking, Health and Retail industries.
