About Giorgio

My name is Giorgio Venturi and I live in South London with my 4-year-old daughter Sophie and my wife Marivanna. I know what you think about people living ‘south of the river’, but I honestly don’t care.

 

I was born in Perugia, Umbria, often considered the “green hearth” of Italy because of its dense woods.

I am a user-centred design professional with more than 15 years of experience. I am an innovator and enterpreneur with an unbounded enthusiasm for my job.

In the last 8 years, I worked with amazing design teams at Fjord, Experientia, Grand Union and several more digital agencies, constantly testing new ways to make user-centred research methods and design techniques more effective. I worked with many great clients, including Intel, Google, Skype, LG, Vodafone, RBS, Fidelity International, Lloyds TSB, Jaguar Land Rover and many more.

Along the way, I discovered how much I love working with startups. I gave my contributions to companies such as Canonical, Blinkbox, Inensu, Glamoo, Inzair and many more. I really enjoy working with people at startups, where I can bring in my expertise in guerrilla research, iterative design and prototyping and put it practice with the maximum effect.

Before 2006, I was a researcher in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). I was Research Fellow and PhD candidate at the University of Bedfordshire (see my publications). I try to find time to write papers and essays about user research, interaction design and design philosophy, but I am finding it more and more difficult due to my increasingly involvement with leading design teams and doing hands-on work.

Before staying in London, I lived in the Netherlands – a country I love for its quality of life. I carried out a Marie Curie Research Fellowship in Thales Naval, Netherlands, Combat Systems (2003-2005). My research goal was the integration of User Centred Design in the product lifecycle of interactive products. I was also involved in the design and evaluation of novel information visualisation for command and control systems.

Broadly speaking, in the years 2001-2005 I carried out research on Human Factors Engineering, User Centred Product Development, Universal Design, Accessibility, Cognitive Work Analysis, Learning Design.

Today, I believe those years have helped me changing the way I approach design in organizations  today. Design practice is not only a matter of pixels or interaction design patterns; it also mediates between conflicting perspectives and requirements and ultimately it works when it bridges that gap.

I love traveling and I especially enjoy backpacking. One of the best times in my life has been spend hitchhiking across the beautiful Ireland.