AXD

Advanced eXperience Design

Website's Project

AXD. Advanced Experience Design is a multidisciplinary research group of professors, researchers and professionals with more than ten years of activity in the design and research of both digital and physical products and experiences.

AXD takes a responsible approach to design, ranging from meta design to strategic and service design, and focuses its activities:

  • on the sustainability and impact of digital technologies and IoT systems, collaborating with NTT Data Italia for a specific PhD;
  • on sustainability and circularity in new product development (NPD) for manufacturing companies, in collaboration with DeLonghi Group;
  • on User Experience, by setting up a dedicated Academy (Experience Design Academy - POLI.design) thatalso deals with research and training in the professional field;
  • on inclusion, developing projects such as the Laboratorio COmeta dedicated to autism, the OpenCOmeta project and a PhD on the issues of inclusiveness in the meta project.

The group's goal is therefore to develop innovations based on solid research roots, covering all phases of the product or service life cycle: from preliminary research to requirements definition and information and interaction design, adopting an iterative process according to Research Through Design principles.

AXD uses a flexible approach that integrates adaptable tools and multidisciplinary competences to constantly improve the interaction between research and practical application. Thanks to collaborations with the Management Engineering and Mechanical Engineering Departments of Politecnico di Milano and the Communication Psychology Study and Research Centre of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, it has created the AXD Laboratory, an experimental space equipped with advanced technologies that hybridise different competences, from virtual modelling to biometric evaluation in order to design user experiences that are aware and informed by qualitative/quantitative approaches. An example of this hybridisation is the Automotive eXperience Design test platform, a physical simulator that enables the evaluation of multi-sensory interaction in vehicles by integrating digital screens, voice, light and sound in a realistic environment.

The core of AXD's activity is structured around three key dimensions: Advanced, Experience and Design.

  • Advanced: refers to the application of cutting-edge methodologies and technologies in innovative areas such as autism, automotive and complex systems.
  • Experience: emphasises user interaction, with a focus on usability, inclusiveness and sustainability.
  • Design: combines applied research with iterative design to continuously refine and improve the methods used.

AXD stands out for its innovative and integrated approach, capable of connecting research, training and practical application, promoting inclusive and sustainable design that allows it to deliver and organise:

  • institutional teaching, through courses such as Meta project (Lab Cometa) in the Industrial Product Design Degree Course, the Final Synthesis Laboratory of the Master's Degree Course in Integrated Product Design (Smart Design), and the Advanced Human Machine Interfaces course in the Master's Degree Course in Mechanical Engineering;
  • postgraduate training, with 2 academic Masters and 4 professional courses on UX, UI and Digital Product Design & Development, as well as corporate training experiences with partners such as NTT Data (Italy and Japan), FUJITSU, Agos, ABB, Borsa Italiana, and others;
  • funded research, including PNRR projects, the Base5G project on Smart Mobility (Regione Lombardia and Vodafone), collaborations with companies such as NTT Data, Huawei, Fastweb, and SKY;
  • third mission activities, with dissemination events such as UX Talks and the Experience Matters event, a quantitative study on the marriage between Design and Marketing, as well as the OpenCometa platform dedicated to the dissemination of products for autism.

Research projects