Taxing interfaces

In Italy, like in most other countries I believe, we have what is called the bollo auto, in the English speaking world car tax, or road tax, or even vehicle license fee. That is something you pay on a half-yearly or yearly base because you own or drive around a car. In darker ages you had to suffer time-consuming queues in some murky and crowded place where after showing handful of dubious-looking papers to a bored clerk you ended up paying the wrong amount, but this is the Internet Age: we have the Web, we have automated procedures, we do it online, we do it better.
So climb in, ladies and gentlemen, let's go pay some bollo auto.

The 2nd Italian IA Summit

We did it again. Last year in Rome, this year in Trento. Last year a one-day gig, this year a two-days opus. What didn't change was the enthusiasm: 230 people attended the free conference, and it looks like they loved what they saw and heard. After some long planning and kung-fu fighting, the Second Italian IA Summit is now behind our back, and it's been a success. Let me tell you why.

Minima Typographica

Oh man.
What were they thinking when they had this designed?

Usability in the Real World

Having being trained as a designer in the late Eighties - early Nineties, that is when designing had more to do with wood, metal and plastic than screen estate, I still consider hardware design a somewhat important and fairly captivating part of my job, even after some straight sixteen years struggling over the immaterial whereabouts of the digital trade.

The 1st Italian IA Summit

We did it. Although it rained all of the time, which was somewhat unstereotypical for Rome (What? No sun? You must be kidding) and the direct cause for quite a riot in the one and only bar in sight at lunch-break, information architects from all over Italy gathered at the CNR building to turn the first Italian IA Summit into a success.

Peter Boersma opened up with the official keynote around 9.30 am after a brief introduction by the man himself, Emanuele Quintarelli, the guy who made it possible (albeit with a little help from his friends, namely, at least, Luca Rosati).