On the Border Between Curiosity and the Unknown

We inhabit the island of the known. Its shores are the coasts of curiosity and look out toward the vast sea of the unknown.
The more the island of knowledge expands, the more its edges grow, and with them curiosity.^*

Welcome to my site. If you feel like getting to know me, you'll find something here to satisfy your appetite.

I'm Manuel Colombo. Some know me for my work in Digital Design and research on and with users; for over 15 years I've followed projects and clients of multinational scope and broad technical and relational complexity. Among those who know me only professionally, there are some who think my purpose is to optimize experiences. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Optimization inevitably leads to the obvious, to routine, to repetition of the most efficient patterns. I work to help the teams I collaborate with and the organizations that commission the work make sure this never happens. Their users, my brothers and accomplices, must live memorable, exceptional, unique experiences.

There are others, more fortunate, who know me outside the narrow confines of daily projects. With them I try to take a further step toward the sea of the unknown.

When it comes to doing things seriously, or when the problem seems trivial, I find it necessary to destroy my certainties: to explore ideas from at least three perspectives: mine, the opposite one, and that of a third awkward party, in radical disagreement with both. This approach generates new insights and helps discover possibilities that conventional thinking often misses.

Here you can find something about me, explore my approach to design and research, and read some of my ideas

^*from Alberto Cairo, How to Charts Lie