Ux designers education and practice: making designer as topic connectors to enhance intrinsic complex values of made in italy craftsmanship

The word “design” is associated with specific disciplines, and, in turn complex. How is it possible then to define the formation of a designer? If design does not mean only designing and giving shape to objects, then learning to design means access to integrated courses and going beyond issues of aesthetics. This allows the designer to think and act with respect to possible future worlds. Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Reloaded (2014),1 describes the figure of a good designer as one who never starts trying to solve the problem that is offered, unlike engineers and managers; but first, s/he must try to understand what are the real issues at stake. We start by studying people and what they are trying to do. The goal of the designer is to develop products or services that match the needs and abilities of people. One does not try to find a solution until he or she is sure of the real problem, and even when it is found, instead of solving it directly, one takes into account a wide range of potential solutions: s/he then converges towards a precise proposal. Zurlo (2002) describes the figure of a designer who has a high integration with the company and has a well-defined research topic and consistently pursues acting on all levels of the product system. The "x-designer" always moves from research, for example to define exactly the needs, the context, the limits where the design process starts; s/he operates technical choices, which are ergonomically, aesthetically and economically correspondent. It becomes very difficult to find a positioning for the figure of the designer that is appropriate to other declinations and specificity of the modern designer. In many countries of Europe, between the nineteenth and twentieth century, there has been discussion about the cultural role of artifacts and of their materials, production processes, their function and appearance.