Master's in Interaction Design
Year of Graduation: 2013
Current role: Digital user experience manager, Design Group Italia
Country: United States of America
Julie Blitzer is the digital user experience manager for Design Group Italia, a studio with 50 years of leadership in design, branding, and innovation for clients around the world. Julie has been also appointed Co-chair of Interaction Week 2020, leading the premier global event for the interaction design community.
Born and raised in New York City, Julie moved to Milan in 2013 to earn her Master in Interaction Design at Domus Academy. She has worked on user experience projects for enterprises, startups, nonprofits, and governments, in the areas of e-commerce, consumer electronics, fashion, banking, and education.
Julie loves the challenge of working on any kind of interface: apps, websites, interactive installations, and even home appliances. Her recent projects have been focused on wearable devices, industrial IoT applications, and financial technology.
Julie teaches and mentors for the educational organizations Thinkful, General Assembly, Startup Weekend, Girls Who Code, and more. She has spoken at numerous conferences and events, including SXSW Interactive, IxDA’s interaction conference, DroidCon, and Netroots Nation. She is also a lecturer at both Domus Academy and Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) in Milan.
Prior to joining Design Group Italia, Julie worked for other design agencies (UbiquityLab, Experientia) and technology startups (JOOR, AppNexus) and served as the UX lead for Advomatic. She has also served as an independent user experience consultant, helping companies better understand and serve their audiences. To each project, she brings research and design skills informed by her interdisciplinary background in politics, business, and mathematics.
She speaks English, Italian, and French and has dabbled in learning Mandarin Chinese and Hebrew. Julie completed her undergraduate study (B.A. in Government) at Claremont McKenna College in California. She is currently based in Milan, Italy, but can often be found in Design Group Italia’s NYC studio.