Topconf: What excites you about working in the IT industry?
Chiara: The speed. Everything is moving so fast in our days! That which is impossible now, at the moment of writing, won’t be in a few months or years.
We live in a world full of possibilities! The IT industry has improved the life of many people. However, I look at the advent of new technologies with critical eyes too.
I think today we live in two realities: the one that’s tangible, made of material things that we can touch, subject to time and changes that we can’t really control; and the virtual one, immersive, exciting and controllable.
With the big tech companies, like Facebook, Sony and Google, investing in virtual reality, I can see that our generation will soon be exploring anew levels of interaction and communication. I do hope there will still be space to live life as we know it: unpredictable and emotionally beautiful.

Topconf: What do you like most about your job? What do you like least?
Chiara: I love being a designer. It is so aligned with my natural way of thinking. It reflects who I am and how I live. I like functionality in design, but I do also love when it is surrounded by beauty, colour, typography and details.
But there is something else that I absolutely love about my work: seeing people enjoy what I design for them, whatever it is, from a website to a brochure.
This is why I wake up every morning!
Of course there are also things that put out my enthusiasm like meetings without an agenda and last-minutes changes that push deadlines further. For this reason I do my best to guide my own clients to follow a specific process of exploration of the problem so that we can find a strategic solution together. In this way we can all avoid painful last-minutes decisions that needlessly increase work hours, costs and pressure on both sides.

Topconf: What is your motivation to speak at Topconf Tallinn 2016?
Chiara: I think what thrills me is to be able to share my knowledge and experience as a designer with an audience that it is mainly technical.
But there is also another thing that I love about speaking at TopConf Tallinn and it is about the people I will meet. I look forward to exchanging opinions and ideas with great minds from the industry and enrich my own world with new inspirations and possibilities. There is always a lot to learn at conferences like TopConf Tallinn!
And of course, Tallinn, the city, the architecture and its typography. I am sure I will take lots of pictures of this beautiful city and fall in love with some typical Estonian sweets that I will add to my list of “things to buy when I am abroad”.

Topconf: What sessions are you giving at Topconf Tallinn and what will be the take away for the participants?
Chiara: My session is called “A day in the life of a UX designer”. As a designer, I soon realised that I am not the only one that it is looking for seamless experiences.
I know lot of people that get frustrated with a badly designed product. Most of the time they blame themselves when actually the flaw is in the product that they are using.
It doesn’t matter if you are a designer, a developer or a programmer, user experience is a logic-based process propped on the understanding of how people use and enjoy a product on a daily basis.
During my presentation the audience will discover what UX is and how they can give their customers the best experience ever.

Topconf: What is you life/career motto?
Chiara: I like the point of view of the Italian designer, Bruno Munari, about the role of imagination in the creativity process.
He used to say that “Fantasy, invention and creativity think, the imagination sees”.
Our minds should be continuously fed with the first three elements, but to be able to transform objects, realities and concepts we need imagination. We need to let ourselves free and don’t let our mind be inhibited by conformity. Only in this way we can think big and create bigger!