Founder & CEO - WideTag, Inc.

- Shots from my portfolio
.
/// WHO I AM (short bio)
Leandro has more than 10 years of experience as an interaction designer and manager of IxD teams. As designer and manager he specializes in next generation user interfaces. As serial innovator, he is working about Spimes, Massive Data Collection and Social Hardware, aka Internet of Things.

Leandro’s wide range of interests starts with HCI and end into Strategies. He had a role in innovating HCI with SrLabs (first computer using eyegaze and voice) or supporting an italian company involved in Robotic.
.

Previous Role
As Design and Vision Director of Kallideas (Milan, Italy) Leandro is providing detailed specifications for the behaviors of such virtual assistants, including gesture, language, and social skills; defining emotional models that let these assistants respond to the moods of users; and designing visual user interfaces and voice-recognition systems.
Leandro is giving his contribute to set up a Research Lab (just called “The Lab”) inside the Kallideas Group and he lead the “vision” team, that is a group of people with competence in 3D rendering, graphics engines, flash development, etc.

Putting hands into Web2.0: Clantropia (SocialGame. not yet released) and Photoshakr (Flickr’s Mashup).

Last but not least, Leandro -thought the high visility on italian newspaper of his personal project Idearium Island- inspired a new office department focused about SecondLife

US Press: Two articles about leeander’s job
- An Interview with Giorgio Manfredi, Founder and President of Kallideas (BAIAblog - The Voice of the Italian & American Business Community)
- From GUI to E(motional) UI - sept06 on UXmatters

eUI show in CA
- Life Beyoond Embodiment - My speech at BayCHI (inside YAHOO headquarter in Sunnyvale, CA) - on SLIDESHARE

.
Before joining Kallideas, Leandro was Advanced Design Director at the innovative startup SrLabs (2003), where he focused on eye-tracking for the usability market. While there, he lead a design team that created the world first hands-free, multimodal GUI with voice and gaze input (I-ABLE). People with strong disability (SLA) are supported by this machine.
A similar technology called PRO-BE is used also for special laptop produced by FIMI-Philips and sold (soon) all over the world. (I’m very proud to be the original designer of these UI).

Previously (2000), he was co-founder and Vice President of Altoprofilo (the User Experience Company), a large eConsultancy with offices in Milan and Boston.

Leandro studied interaction design at the Domus Academy, in Milan, Italy (’97, Apple Design Project). Before ‘97, Leandro worked 3 years as visual designer, starting from a printing company and quickly moved to his own designer studio.

Leandro is actively involved with the Milano Bicocca University, TorVergata University, and others. Leandro is a prolific writer on topics from IxD, usability, and UX to natural, multimodal user interfaces. He was the founder of Idearium.org, the first Italian eZine/community for UX designers, and is co-producer of the Interaction Frontiers conference.

.

/// WHAT I DO
I’m involved in PRODUCT BEHAVIOUR DESIGN (that NOT means just GUI design). What it means? It means to be part (or lead) of all this following activities.
- strategy (service design but also market opportunities evaluations)
- evaluation of context, users, process, and relation beetween all of them.
- concept design (UCD could be a effective approach)
- great prototyping! (sketches , wireframe, blueprint, etc)
- usability test (traditional or eye-t)

Plus…
- team/project management
- teaching, sharing K, building community, etc.

All this on traditional tech project (everything that is mouse based), mobile and multimodal UI. Infact I worked on Medical instruments as well on web2.0 app, mobile services, virtual assistants, etc… well, multimodal UI, social applications, gaming and emotional UI are my favourite fields!

.

/// ABOUT ACADEMICS…
In the last 5 years I collaborated with important academic institution:
ArsonavaSiena (member of the advisory board), University of Milano Bicocca (MIU Master program co-coordinator 2001/2004), Domus Academy (I-Design Master program), Rome TorVergata University (INTERFACCE ‘04, 05), plus other University and private Schools (as visiting professor). Since 2001, I’m leading IDEARIUM.ORG, the first italian eZine/Community about Interaction Design and one of the biggest italian projects on SECOND LIFE.

.

In last FIVE years -with Matteo Penzo- I co-produced the conference Frontiers of Interaction: a completely insane new approach to spread knowledge about IxD.
Frontiers of Interaction Conference is 50% a Show with live dj session, lights, robots and few journalist from biggest italian newspapers and magazines!

.

Award Winning: APPLE DESIGN PROJECT 1997 with this "Memories of Relation" project (tutor: Marco Susani)