Francesco Perchiazzi
Design Strategy Director · EdTech, XR & Institutional Innovation
Designs and operates human-centred XR and AI systems across education, research, and large-scale digital ecosystems.
Research
Extended Reality platforms arrived before anyone formalised how to design for them. This research builds what was missing: a discipline that tells designers where to place content in 3D space, why, and how to verify it, early in the process and before platform decisions are locked in.
In plain terms: when you design for spatial computing, you need to know where to put things in the space around a human body. The Proxemic Scaling Framework (PSF) answers that question with a set of measurable compositional zones, grounded in perceptual science and cognitive load research, that make layout decisions principled rather than intuitive. The model translates proxemic theory and predictive processing research into seven proprioceptive zones, applicable across Android XR, visionOS, WebXR, and any immersive computing environment, and usable at the earliest stage of design, upstream of any platform implementation.
Working paper in preparation. Draft available on request. If you are a researcher, educator, or institution interested in reviewing a draft or discussing collaboration, write directly.
Instruments
Three open tools produced by this research. Freely available.
K.I.T.E. UX. Knowledge-Integrated Topological Editor for User Experience
imaginary institute · 2026 · WebXR, Three.js · Open source
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Spatial computing platforms provided anchors, surfaces, and dynamic scaling, without providing compositional grammar for where content should go. Designers were guessing at ergonomics that should have been grounded in neuroscience. | Built on the Proxemic Scaling Framework (PSF) as its computational backbone and optimized via an agentic coding workflow. K.I.T.E. UX translates the seven-zone architecture into real-time gamut feedback, FOV cone visualisation, and parametric layout evaluation, making ergonomic reasoning executable at design time rather than retrospective in testing. | Foundational spatial ergonomics benchmark for XR: a free, open-source tool that makes ergonomic layout constraints visible during design, so designers can verify spatial correctness prior to platform implementation. |
K.I.T.E. UX originated from a research question: when spatial computing platforms introduced persistent windows and volumes anchored in physical space, something fundamental changed in how digital interfaces relate to the human body.
Windows no longer lived in displays. They floated, persisted, and became part of a user’s cognitive geography. But there was no compositional grammar to guide their arrangement.
The design workflow follows three sequential phases: Prototype: arrange Volumes and Windows in the spatial canvas and assign archetype classifications; Benchmark: receive real-time PSF evaluation feedback and iterate until all gamut states reach Optimal or Good; Export: generate the validated configuration as structured JSON for platform implementation in SwiftUI/RealityKit or OpenXR-compatible environments. This pipeline closes the designer–developer gap: ergonomic rationale is encoded alongside coordinates, not lost in handoff.
The XR tool integrates first-person WebXR previews with real-time ergonomic benchmarking and FOV comfort overlays in true 1:1 scale wireframes. Spatial templates, flexible JSON and cinematic exports, and AI-assisted ideation support the full design-to-handoff pipeline. Pattern libraries answer what; K.I.T.E. UX was built to answer why. Rather than encoding rules, the editor makes constraints negotiable in real time: every spatial decision becomes auditable, every layout iteration traceable back to a measurable ergonomic rationale.
The 60° FOV cone makes the difference between what is visible and what requires active head movement, concrete and testable before any prototype is built. Combined with Storyboard allows designers to record named scenes and step through them as a spatial sequence. The Gamut Warning system in action. Entities are colour-graded every frame, green for optimal, yellow for acceptable, orange for warning, red for critical. The floor rings mark the Intimate (0.6m) and Personal (1.2m) proxemic boundaries.
The Storyboard records named layout states for multi-step spatial narratives. The 60° FOV cone visualises the user’s natural gaze envelope, immediately showing which entities require head rotation to reach. K.I.T.E. UX with an immersive 360° background active, showing the full catalogue of entity types: Vertical Ornament, Window 16:9, Standard Volume, Window 3:2, Textured Volume, Window 9:16, Window 2:3, and Horizontal Ornament, each labelled and positioned at distinct distances.
The editor runs entirely in the browser. No installation, no account. Every entity placed in the canvas, whether Window, Volume, Ornament, or Immersive, carries a parametric Inspector: position in metres, scale, rotation, colour, texture upload, and entity label. Windows expose format presets (16:9, 3:2, 1:1, 9:16, 2:3) and a width slider that reports both metric size and diagonal inch equivalent in real time, bridging the physical and the pixel.
K.I.T.E. UX is freely available to designers, developers, and researchers. The instrument defines two fundamental spatial interface categories, Windows and Volumes, each with six archetypal scales anchored to culturally recognisable reference objects, from a Junghans Max Bill watch to a Fiat 500, making ergonomic reasoning accessible without requiring mastery of neuroscience or biomechanics first. Try K.I.T.E. UX →
TheaXRe. visionOS-ready scene packaging: from UI frames to spatial artefacts
Independent prototype · 2026 · USDZ-first delivery pipeline
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Spatial UI concepts often live as flat frames (Figma, screenshots, decks) and remain disconnected from the spatial medium. Teams need a lightweight way to package interface studies as tangible, shareable spatial artefacts. | Research-through-making: prototype a USDZ-first delivery path that prioritises portability (Quick Look / visionOS) and low-friction sharing. Built via an agentic coding workflow, with AI as execution engine for structural and export logic directed by spatial and ergonomic constraints defined upstream. Keep the output simple, deterministic, and compatible with common review workflows. | A companion web prototype that frames UI studies as spatial objects and packages them for visionOS-oriented review. It supports faster critique cycles by moving from “static frames” to “placeable artefacts”. |
TheaXRe explores a USDZ-first approach to presenting interface concepts as placeable spatial artefacts. Where sXRetch converts images into assets, TheaXRe addresses how a scene is packaged, shared, and critiqued, moving teams from static frames to spatial review in a single step.
sXRetch. Image to USDZ/GLB. No‑upload XR prototyping
Independent prototype · 2026 · Client-side USDZ/GLB conversion
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| In XR teaching and rapid prototyping, moving from a sketch or photo to an asset you can place in space (USDZ/GLB) still creates friction. Teams need a fast, low-barrier path from “an image” to “something testable in XR”, without accounts, installs, or uploads. | Research-through-making: build a minimal, single-purpose browser tool and validate it in real workflows. Prioritise clear export affordances, privacy by design (no upload), and compatibility with common handoff tools (Quick Look, Sceneviewer, Reality Composer, Xcode). | A self-contained web app that converts images into USDZ and GLB in seconds on the client, with preview and direct downloads. It supports quick Spatial UI and room-scale mockups, speeding up education exercises and early validation before committing to platform builds. |
sXRetch is a browser-first prototyping tool built around a no-upload pipeline: every conversion happens on the client, with no account, no install, no data leaving the device. Designed for fast iteration at desk scale, education exercises, and early spatial UI validation before committing to platform SDKs.
Speculative Spatial Design Canvas
imaginary institute · 2024 · Printable PDF for download
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| The rise of spatial computing has introduced design challenges, including motion sickness, perceptual fatigue, and a lack of clear interaction models. Designers needed guidance to create effective 3D experiences across sectors. | Created a systematic XR canvas combining spatial computing principles (including Apple’s visionOS Human Interface Guidelines), spatial ergonomics, and narrative theory. Supported each phase of design: from concept to interface logic, 3D audio, and usability validation. | Adopted by designers and developers across spatial computing contexts, including surgical applications for Apple Vision Pro. Reduces early-phase uncertainty by making ergonomic constraints and composition decisions explicit during early-stage design. |
Grounded in the same research framework as K.I.T.E. UX, the Canvas extends PSF reasoning into a structured design session format: where K.I.T.E. UX benchmarks spatial layout, the Canvas structures the decisions that precede it: concept framing, perceptual risk mapping, and compositional intent, all resolved before development begins. It covers contexts from spatial games to precision surgical applications on Apple Vision Pro.
The canvas includes dedicated workflows for three main scenarios: Spatial Apps, Spatial Games, and Surgical Spatial Applications. Each pathway provides tailored examples and design prompts to guide development from early concept to refined prototype, improving team alignment and communication.
The medical workflow fosters collaboration between healthcare professionals and developers, helping envision impactful applications for Apple Vision Pro. It aligns with Apple’s visionOS Human Interface Guidelines and spatial computing best practices. While open to all, it’s especially effective for practitioners with a foundation in spatial interaction design.
The Canvas is best used during the feasibility phase, before porting existing iOS apps to visionOS or initiating new projects in third-party tools like Unity. It is freely available via Create with Swift and developed by imaginary institute. Download the Speculative Spatial Design Canvas for free →
Lecturing
Spatial computing taught as a design problem before a platform decision. Grounded in human factors and the Basic Design tradition of Ulm. Teaching as the mechanism through which research scales across designers, institutions, and industries.
Senior Mentor Spatial Design
Apple Developer Academy, a partnership between the University of Naples Federico II and Apple · 2016 → present
From Apple.com
At the Academy the role involves designing and delivering advanced learning in spatial computing and immersive interface design, combining perceptual science, human factors, and systematic thinking with hands-on prototyping. The goal is not technical fluency alone but conceptual depth: designers who understand why they place things in space, not just how.
The ARTE program (Advanced Research Track Experience) is the Academy’s research-facing track, a space for working at the edge of spatial computing education. Its curriculum is built around immersive interface design, applied spatial ergonomics research, and cross-disciplinary mentorship, with students, PhD researchers, and external faculty collaborating on problems that do not yet have established design solutions.
The role also carries responsibility for translating institutional complexity into coherent public outcomes: aligning the University of Naples Federico II, the Academy ecosystem, external research groups, and major cultural events into participation models that hold under live conditions. Research, education, and real-world execution, kept aligned under pressure.
(The most complete recent instance of this translation is the participation at Napoli Comicon 2026: a dual-format presence combining a 48 sqm exhibition booth and the ARTE panel on the HyperStage, documented as a programme management case study in the Work section.)
The role is not to produce. It is to enable. The project belongs to whoever builds it. The contribution is iterative: framing the problem, reviewing direction at critical junctures, introducing the reference or constraint that reorients when work stalls, and stepping back when momentum is real.
This applies equally with university students and with experienced professionals in institutional or corporate contexts. The method scales with the quality of the conditions created, not the seniority of the participants. Three principles make this consistent rather than improvised:
- Rational decision-making.
Every pedagogical and design choice is grounded in explicit, verifiable criteria. Not intuition, not the authority of the role. - Radical trust.
Students and collaborators receive real autonomy before they have demonstrated they deserve it. Trust is not a reward. It is the starting condition. - Ecology of relationships.
The care of external connections with institutions, practitioners, and researchers is integral to the educational process, not a parallel activity.
The results that follow from this approach are not accidental. They are the predictable output of conditions designed to produce them.
Appointed through competitive public selection in 2016
(Public Notice iOS T1 04-016, Designer profile)
Ten years building the Academy’s design culture as it grew from a single campus to seventeen international locations. Methodologies co-authored there are now deployed globally. Student teams mentored to over 175 Swift Student Challenge recognitions, a number that reflects the scalability of a methodology rather than individual performance.
The role began as part of the founding team of the iOS Developer Academy pilot program, the institution that later became Apple Developer Academy.
Game Design and Development Curriculum
A dedicated Game Design and Development curriculum was authored and implemented within the Apple Developer Academy’s UX/UI track, now part of the educational offering across all 17 international Academy locations. It integrates player engagement theory (Huizinga, Schell, Csíkszentmihályi), emotional interaction design, and spatial game design for visionOS, grounding game development education in cognitive science rather than tool proficiency.
The program built a sustained alumni community of game designers and developers who compete internationally, exhibit at public events, and contribute to the XR ecosystem. Their work is regularly showcased at Giffoni Good Games and Napoli Comicon, two of southern Italy’s most significant youth-facing cultural events, connecting design education directly to the territory where it is made.
(The 2026 edition of Napoli Comicon represented the full-scale institutional deployment of this model: 48 sqm of public exhibition space, an academic panel on the HyperStage, and 400+ live playtests run entirely by alumni. The operational and logistical case study is documented in Apple Developer Academy at Napoli Comicon 2026 in the Work section.)
Apple Foundation Programme · Design-Driven Track
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte · Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli · Accademia Aeronautica di Pozzuoli · 2019
A cross-institutional program bringing together 25 students from two institutions, fine arts and military aeronautics, inside a national museum. The program integrated ARKit and AI-assisted design tools in what was the first institutional educational deployment of both technologies in an Apple context in Italy.
The design challenge was not technical. It was cognitive and spatial: how do you teach people to design for augmented reality when neither the discipline nor the tools have an established pedagogy? The answer built here became part of the methodology that followed: a direct precursor to the broader pedagogy and institutional partnerships that came after.
Adjunct Professor of Industrial Design
University of Naples Federico II · 2024 → present
Graphic design courses are taught within the Community Design program at the Architecture Department (Scuola Politecnica e delle Scienze di Base), covering both foundational visual theory and applied practice under the ICAR/13 Industrial Design sector. Service also includes thesis supervision and membership of the graduation committee.
Graphic Design
Basic Design (U3430)
Focused on foundational design theory and visual analysis, the course explores perceptual, gestalt, affordance, morphological, formal, and interface characteristics of products, services, and spaces. Students learn configuration theories and methods while establishing fundamental graphic design principles, including typography, layout systems, grid structures, image-text relationships, and spatial hierarchies across diverse product typologies and communication formats. (ICAR/13 Industrial Design) Teaching language: Italian, 6 ECTS, 60 hours of lectures.
Graphic Design
Foundations of Technical Drawing (U3427)
Integrated with Methods and Techniques of Design Representation, the course bridges visual communication principles with technical drawing standards. Students develop both graphic design competencies and technical representation skills essential for industrial design projects, learning to create effective visual solutions that meet aesthetic and technical requirements across different media and industrial applications. (ICAR/13 Industrial Design) Teaching language: Italian, 6 ECTS, 60 hours of lectures.
Work
Systems built across XR, institutional infrastructure, service design, and digital platforms. Each case documents a different scale of complexity: from research instruments adopted internationally to national-scale public sector delivery. Research frameworks and open tools (K.I.T.E. UX, the Speculative Spatial Design Canvas, sXRetch) are documented in the Research section.
| Date | Client | Domain | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Napoli Comicon | Institutional Program & Event Design | Apple Developer Academy at Comicon 2026. Multi-institution XR and game culture program involving exhibition systems, public engagement, and operational coordination across 4 days and 4,000+ distributed artifacts. |
| 2020 | GE.S.A.C | Inclusive Service Design | PRM Inclusive Service Design. Three-role operational coordination suite supporting accessibility and passenger assistance workflows across Naples and Salerno Airports. |
| 2019 | Atellani LLC | IoT Product Ecosystem | Brid Smart Air Purifier. Cross-device interaction and monitoring system for connected air-quality management. |
| 2014 | Abracapp Limited | Social & Community Platform | Abracapp. Hyperlocal storytelling platform focused on community engagement and location-based interaction. |
| 2011 | Poste Italiane | Research & Service Infrastructure | MIUR NOP 0102136 · TITAN. Unified smart-card ecosystem integrating physical and digital public-service channels. |
| 2009 | Heineken Italia | Speculative Interaction Design | Driveken App. Augmented reality campaign exploring behavioural awareness and anti-drunk-driving engagement. |
Apple Developer Academy at Napoli Comicon 2026
University of Naples Federico II · Visiona Soc. Coop. · 2026 · Event Design
| Challenge | Approach | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Coordinating the Apple Developer Academy ecosystem presence at Napoli Comicon 2026 across institutional stakeholders, public engagement, logistics, and live operations. | Designed a dual participation architecture combining a 48 sqm public booth and the ARTE academic panel into a single XR and game culture narrative spanning education, research, and public interaction. | 400+ live playtests · 4,000 distributed artifacts · 4 days of continuous engagement · cross-institution coordination across Apple ecosystem, Federico II, Comicon, alumni, and research groups. |
The participation at Napoli Comicon 2026 extended beyond event organisation. It involved designing a public participation framework capable of operating across institutional complexity, live unpredictability, and continuous audience interaction.
The public booth hosted Studio26, a collective of Apple Developer Academy alumni, presenting interactive multiplayer experiences and live demonstrations. Students managed activities autonomously across four consecutive days, engaging directly with festival visitors in a highly dynamic public environment, running 400+ live playtests with zero institutional scaffolding on festival time.
The ARTE program panel, hosted on the HyperStage on 3 May, brought the Academy’s advanced research track into a public arena: a direct translation of institutional research into a festival-scale conversation, with students, PhD researchers, and faculty from Federico II presenting without reducing complexity for a general audience.
The project became a large-scale exercise in design programme management: coordinating across Apple ecosystem, Federico II, Comicon, alumni networks, and research groups, keeping exhibition, communication, and live participant experience coherent under four consecutive days of public pressure. Visit Napoli Comicon →
Person with Reduced Mobility (PRM) Inclusive Service Design
Naples Salerno Airports GE.S.A.C · 2020 · Android 11
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Coordination gaps between Coordinators, Field Operators, and Transportation Drivers hindered passenger assistance workflows, reducing service quality and operational efficiency. | Ethnographic research and stakeholder interviews shaped design decisions. Mapped daily tasks and identified role-specific needs to inform user flows and interface logic. | Three integrated platforms optimised for distinct operational roles, a coordination dashboard, a field operator interface, and a mobile driver app. |
PRM Manager was developed to optimise assistance services for passengers with reduced mobility (PRMs) at Naples and Salerno airports. Focused on usability and operational clarity, the system coordinates ground staff, airline personnel, and service providers to ensure seamless, respectful support throughout the travel experience.
The project applies service design methodology to improve collaboration across roles and streamline passenger support. It includes real-time coordination tools, predictive scheduling based on historical data, and monitoring systems to ensure accessibility compliance. Interfaces are designed for speed, clarity, and traceability, enabling staff to manage requests effectively and maintain high-quality service records.
PRM Manager aligns with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, reinforcing the right to equal access, mobility, and non-discrimination. Its inclusive design supports passengers with reduced mobility through every touchpoint, upholding dignity and full accessibility. Learn more about GE.S.A.C passenger assistance services →
Brid Smart Air Purifier
Atellani LLC · 2019 · iOS 13, watchOS 7
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Create a cohesive, user-centred experience for BRID’s smart air purifier across iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, balancing advanced features with simplicity across different devices. | Emphasized interaction design, visual clarity, and system responsiveness. Created a clean visual system with consistent navigation. Developed full functionality on iOS/iPadOS and quick-access controls on watchOS. | Produced an inclusive application that simplifies air quality management across Apple devices. Enabled users to monitor and control complex systems through intuitive interaction. |
The Brid App was designed to offer an intuitive experience across iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Grounded in usability, performance, and clarity, the interface supports responsive gestures, consistent navigation, and clear visual feedback. Users can monitor air quality, adjust settings, and receive real-time updates.
The app simplifies the management of indoor air quality through visual indicators, adaptive notifications, and energy-efficient controls tailored to daily patterns and user preferences. Data is presented clearly, making even complex environmental metrics easy to interpret and act upon.
Developed alongside the BRID Air Purifier, the world’s first modular system of its kind, the app acts as its digital companion. BRID’s L.E.A.P. Technology (LED Enabled Advanced Photocatalysis) neutralises multiple classes of indoor pollutants, transforming them into harmless substances through advanced filtration. Discover BRID Air Purifier technology →
Abracapp
Abracapp Limited · 2014 · iOS 8
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Local communities lacked a digital tool to connect neighbors, welcome newcomers, and share everyday stories tied to specific places. Existing platforms didn’t support authentic, location-based engagement at the neighbourhood level. | Designed a location-aware app with tagged posts, adjustable range, multilingual input, and community messaging, centred on storytelling and local relevance, without user profiles or generic feeds. | Abracapp fostered connection through hyperlocal stories, tips, and campaigns. It strengthened digital ties within physical communities and gave users a platform to engage meaningfully with their surroundings. |
Abracapp offers a fresh approach to location-based social interaction by turning physical spaces into shared storytelling platforms. Unlike traditional social networks, it removes user profiles and friend lists, placing the focus on places and the stories they inspire. The result is a more genuine, discovery-driven experience that values community over individual branding.
From streets to neighbourhoods, users can tag places with thoughts, events, and shared memories, building a living archive of local experience. Whether exploring new cities or connecting within familiar spaces, Abracapp creates authentic bonds through place-based storytelling, without the filters of curated identity.
Free and open to all, Abracapp invites users to share ideas, discover local gems, and engage with a dynamic network of stories rooted in real environments. Learn more about Abracapp Limited →
MIUR NOP 0102136 · Titan
University of Salerno, in partnership with Poste Italiane · 2011 to 2015
· iOS 7, Android 4, Windows Phone 8, Intranet Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 7
Research context: Funded under the Italian National Operational program for Research and Competitiveness (PON R&C 2007 to 2013), MIUR grant NOP 0102136. Institutional research project, not client work.
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| The rise of digital payments demanded more than fragmented apps and isolated services. The challenge was to create a single ecosystem where money, mobility, utilities, and loyalty programs could converge, accessible through mobile devices, intranet, POS terminals, and ATMs. | The project mapped the entire lifecycle of digital value, from issuance to everyday use, designing cross-platform interfaces that made complex infrastructures legible. The process combined service design, geolocated engagement, and real-time monitoring to ensure both human-centred usability and institutional scalability. | TITAN introduced Italy’s first vision of a unified smart card: one touchpoint for payments, transport, and services across both physical and digital channels. The project reframed electronic money as a cultural infrastructure, pioneering models that would inform future smart city ecosystems. |
TITAN was a five-year design-driven research initiative that reshaped how electronic money and multi-channel services could be conceived. Beyond building cross-platform interfaces for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and intranet systems, the project developed a scalable vision for financial interactions, merging payments, loyalty, and public utilities into a coherent experience.
The system translated the technical lifecycle of digital transactions into everyday clarity, supporting not only payments but also mobility, billing, and loyalty schemes. Each channel was designed for continuity, embedding trust, security, and compliance as invisible layers beneath a seamless user experience.
At its core, TITAN proposed a multifunctional payment card as the gateway to an interconnected service model. By unifying transport, utilities, vouchers, and loyalty, the project transformed abstract financial mechanisms into tangible, everyday interactions, making complexity legible and value visible.
A decisive step was extending the ecosystem into physical acceptance systems, POS, ATMs, and smart registers, bridging the digital and material dimensions of financial interaction. Design patterns ensured continuity between operator and end-user experiences, making the system resilient and inclusive.
TITAN ultimately helped define the strategic language of multi-channel service design in Italy’s fintech landscape. By converting infrastructural complexity into human-centred clarity, it laid the groundwork for later innovations in mobile payments and digital public services. Learn more about MIUR NOP 0102136 Titan →
Driveken App · Master’s Thesis Project in Visual Design (Advertising Track)
SPD, School of Design, Milan in partnership with Heineken Italy · 2009 · iPhone OS 2
Academic context: Postgraduate thesis project, Master’s in Visual Design, SPD, School of Design, Milan. Supervised by Paolo Iabichino.
| Challenge / Opportunity | Methodology / Model | Outcome / Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Raise awareness about drunk driving among young people through interactive experiences in nightlife venues, moving beyond static campaigns. | Designed immersive AR installations using OpenGL, deployed in bars and clubs. Integrated physical triggers and coin-operated activators to prompt reflection within familiar social settings. | Merged AR with public safety messaging in a direct, memorable way. Demonstrated the power of immersive media to communicate social issues, setting an early example of purpose-driven interaction design. |
Driveken explored how augmented reality could be applied to social responsibility campaigns, years before the technology became mainstream. Titled "Driveken, Life is not a play," the project used OpenGL-based AR installations in bars and clubs to make drunk-driving risks visceral and immediate, rather than abstract.
Created in collaboration with Giacomo Brivio, Federico Bucchi, and Alberto Spada under the supervision of Paolo Iabichino. What the project left behind was not a campaign. It was a question: why does augmented space produce a reaction that a screen never could? That question did not have a name in 2009. It took fifteen more years, a framework, and a research program to build one. Learn more about SPD, School of Design, Milan →
Talks
Speaking on XR research, spatial ergonomics, play-informed education, and human-centred design, across academic institutions, design conferences, and public events.
Topics Spatial computing and immersive interface design · Spatial ergonomics and cognitive design tools · Game design and development for spatial computing · XR education and curriculum models · Design research for emerging platforms.
From Gaming in Apple Developer Academy
Selected Events
- Panel: ARTE program | Apple Developer Academy Napoli Comicon
- Tutorial: Designing Human-Centred Spatial Experiences XR Salento
- Panel: Apple Academy: A Digital Renaissance Napoli Comicon
- Workshop: FutureCraft. Prototyping Tomorrow’s Technology Naples Design Week
- Workshop: Redefining the Visible. visionOS Desina Festival
- Panel: Gaming in Apple Developer Academy Giffoni Good Games
Publications
Research writing and applied writing: theoretical foundations for one audience, practical translation for the other.
Research & Academic Writing
Working paper in preparation. If you are interested in reviewing a draft or discussing collaboration, write directly.
Book
- Book
Fare cinema disegnato. Il cartoon animato spiegato a mio nipote
Analysis of animated film production and visual design principles through the lens of Gestalt Psychology. Developed from graduate research at SPD, School of Design, Milan.
Articles: Industry & Professional
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2025
K.I.T.E. UX. The First Spatial Ergonomics Benchmark for XR
Presents the rationale and architecture of K.I.T.E. UX, documenting how the Proxemic Scaling Model is operationalised through the Gamut Warning system and the seven proprioceptive zones into a browser-based ergonomic editor.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2025
Solid Interfaces for visionOS: Widgets and Cognitive Space in Spatial Computing
Argues that persistent spatial widgets require a cognitive grammar, not just a visual one, proposing compositional rules grounded in proprioception and fatigue budgets.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2024
Embracing Imaginary Spatial User Experience in visionOS
Practical guidelines for UX models and design principles in presence-based systems, where the interface is no longer a surface but a volume.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2024
Pioneering Spatial Computing Education: From iOS to visionOS
Traces the program evolution from mobile-first to spatial-native design education, and what new cognitive competencies spatial computing demands from designers.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2024
Revolutionizing Surgery and Medical Treatments with visionOS
Methodology development in clinical XR contexts, where spatial ergonomics and cognitive clarity are not preferences but patient safety requirements.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2024
Embracing Spatial Computing: Game Design in visionOS
Applied research in agency, narrative, and spatial interaction, using game design as a laboratory for testing compositional grammar in spatial environments.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2024
The Speculative Spatial Design Canvas
Documents the conceptual architecture of the SSDC and its application as a shared language for multi-disciplinary teams working on spatial experiences, from game designers to clinical developers on Apple Vision Pro.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2024
Diving Deep into Spatial Design for visionOS
Conceptual and practical foundations for XR designers entering immersive computing, including the constraints, the opportunities, and the cognitive demands of designing for presence.
- Industry · Create with Swift · 2023
Extended Reality (XR): visionOS Challenges
An early mapping of the design challenges specific to visionOS, toward adaptive, embodied, and cognitively grounded spatial interfaces.
About
The question has always been the same: how do space, systems, and human perception fit together? Everything else followed from that.
As a teenager in the 1990s, I lived inside comics, films, and video games: not as entertainment, but as environments. Those worlds taught me that images, sequences, and space are not representations of experience; they are its architecture. I grew up in a family of ordinary workers where thinking through space was already a way of life, and education a foundational value. My mother, an elementary school teacher, stepped away from her work to raise me. What I inherited was not access, but structure. My grandfather drafted aero-naval systems for propeller aircraft and ships. My uncle trained as an industrial designer at Olivetti in the 1960s, then worked as an external consultant across industries. My father worked as draftsman at Aeritalia and CIRA, through the airport as an operational system, where airspace, radar, and onboard interfaces translated movement into information. What surrounded me was not aviation as spectacle, but as design: the computation of space, the readability of systems, the relationship between human perception and machines.
A CAD workstation powered by an Intel 486 DX2 at 66 MHz was also running games, military flight simulators. I didn’t see them as games. I wanted to inhabit that space: computing, flight, systems you could enter and explore.
Before manga, there were arcades. Every new place on holiday meant locating the local arcade first. The compulsion was not about playing. It was about entering systems, reading their internal logic, testing their edges. At fifteen, Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 film, adapted from Masamune Shirow’s manga) produced a shock I didn’t have a framework for yet. Not an aesthetic one. A conceptual one. I bought it eight times, including the artbook. What I was circling was not the animation. It was the question the film asked about the body, about memory, about identity inside a technological system. The same question that was already inside the flight simulators, in a different form. At seventeen that question sent me to drawing classes. I told myself I was learning to make comics. I was actually looking for a grammar of inhabitable space. The comic was the tool available. The real thing was the question underneath it.
I had wanted to fly, but not to drop anything: to inhabit systems, not to destroy them. I didn’t yet know what interface design was; I already knew what it was for. Years later, I would come to call that question spatial ergonomics. The first contact with something that could be called immersive came through an internship at Digigraf, during which I studied one of Italy’s earliest examples of interactive digital heritage: the Museo Narrante del Santuario di Hera Argiva at Paestum. In parallel, self-published fanzines and live sketch work at events including Napoli Comicon were testing the same question in a different register: how do images and space construct meaning in the mind of a viewer? That research later became a master’s degree thesis, and eventually a published book: Fare cinema disegnato (La Torre Editrice, 2012), an experimental study of animated film production through the lens of Basic Design principles.
That question demanded a wide formation before a narrow one. A degree in Beni Culturali at the University of Naples covered art history, architectural history, museology, archaeology, ancient history, business economics, and theatre and cinema studies, the full perimeter of culture as spatial practice. A Master’s degree at La Sapienza in Rome, Forms and Techniques of Performance (Cinema, Theatre, Television), shifted the focus from space to the human being inside it: how people receive, interpret, and embody mediated experience. Postgraduate studies at SPD, Scuola Politecnica di Design, in Milan, founded by Nino Di Salvatore on the principles of Gestalt psychology and the science of vision, with Bruno Munari among its faculty, embody what Pietro Nunziante, writing on Roberto Mango’s legacy at the Faculty of Architecture in Naples, calls design come imparare a pensare: design as learning to think. For a broader lineage of systemic design, see Tomás Maldonado’s legacy in systems-thinking and design theory. That formation gave the question its first technical frame.
In 2011, the iPhone forced a reckoning. Companies that had never thought about software interfaces suddenly needed people who could design them. There was no established pipeline, no curriculum, no job title everyone agreed on. A generation of graphic designers found themselves converted into UI designers by circumstance, learning iOS, Windows Phone, Android, and intranet systems on the job, without a map. I was one of them. Those years clarified the gap between making interfaces and understanding them. I worked, saved, and used the money to close that gap at the source: studying directly under Bruce Tognazzini at the Nielsen Norman Group in Atlanta. What I found there was not a set of rules. It was the same logic I had seen in my grandfather’s plans, designing for the mind that will inhabit the space. That is still the work.
AI agents are a later iteration of the same structure. The 486 DX2 removed the distance between spatial thinking and its representation: a twelve-year-old could finally place objects in simulated space without knowing how the engine worked. Agentic workflows do the same thing at a different level of abstraction: syntax becomes infrastructure, and the constraint worth attending to is no longer the tool but the spatial and ergonomic logic that directs it. What changes is not the question. What changes is how quickly you can test whether your answer holds.
From Atlanta, the trajectory became clearer. Interface design gradually expanded into extended reality and game design. A public selection at the Apple Developer Academy (Passion-Powered Students!) gave that research a place to take form in practice: how digital systems move from flat screens into inhabitable space, how designers learn to think about the body before the code. Teaching continued later at the University of Naples Federico II.
The model for this discipline is not Silicon Valley. It is Adriano Olivetti’s Italy: the idea that technology is not separable from the culture, education, and community that produces and inhabits it. That a company and a community are not opposites. That the most durable design work happens at the intersection of both.
Currently: directing the ARTE Programme at the Apple Developer Academy, teaching at Federico II, and researching spatial ergonomics for human-centred XR, with a formal paper currently under review.
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The work described here is available as leadership, not as execution. If you are directing an organisation, institution, or programme that needs to build or scale at the intersection of spatial computing, XR, AI systems, and education; if you need someone to lead the strategy, the research direction, or the programme architecture, this is the right conversation to start.
Engagements include institutional partnerships, research collaborations, advisory roles, and public programme leadership. I also bring research and design into large public contexts: panels, exhibitions, and live programmes including Napoli Comicon Festival and game-focused events with partners such as IIDEA.
Areas of engagement
- Design Programme Management:Leading multi-stakeholder design initiatives across XR, education, and public sector delivery.
- Spatial Ergonomics Research:Applying the Proxemic Scaling Framework and SEF to XR interface design challenges. Collaborations and research partnerships welcome.
- Spatial Computing Programme Design:Structuring curricula, defining academic vision, and establishing spatial computing frameworks for universities, academies, and corporate learning programmes.
- Institutional Coordination:Programme architecture and delivery for complex multi-institution initiatives: exhibitions, public events, research labs, innovation programmes.
- Strategic Direction & Systems Design:Guiding product strategy, spatial ergonomics, and spatial and AI system architecture for R&D teams and institutional programmes.
- Keynotes & Masterclasses:Lectures on spatial computing, XR design research, the intersection of education and emerging technology, and institutional innovation.
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