About the Author

With a background in psychology (University of Padova) and computer science (University of Pisa), Andrea Picchi started designing WebApps for the new Apple device in 2007 when the first iPhone was launched on the market. After the first release of the Apple SDK in 2008, he started developing Native Apps using Objective-C.

He also worked with the SimBin Development Team AB on the videogame RACE07—The Official WTCC Game project—and supported the group's iPhone iUI Developers, iPhoneWebDev and iPhone Application Development course at Stanford University.

In recent years, Andrea Picchi has spoken at many important conferences around Europe, twice at the WhyMCA Mobile Developer Conference with a talk on “The Cognitive Paradigm of Touch-Screen Devices” and another on “A Cognitive Approach to the User-Centered Design for Mobile Design and Development.” He also spoke at IASummit with a speech on “Cognitive Design and Optimization of Touch-Screen Interfaces” and at UXConference with a speech on “Cognitive Optimization of Mobile Touch Contexts.”

In 2011 he also started to teach “iOSWebApps” in a course also available on iTunesU and “Mobile Device Development” in a first-level Master, both organized by the Computer Science Department of the University of Pisa.

Today, as a mobile project manager, his priority has been to implement a cognitive approach to touch-screen interface design in both mobile and ubiquitous computing contexts. He also continues his work designing and developing for iOS with both the web model (using HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript) and SDK model (using Cocoa-Touch in Objective-C).