Work Hard

I am a computer scientist (that's a mathematician running on electrical power who is able to distinguish 10 numbers) with passion for good User Experience Design.

My initial university studies taught me how to build complex computer architectures (solder & think!) but only after I lived to see the possibilities with those advanced circuits I became a visualization enthusiast (thanks SGI!).

From there on I focused on using this enormous potential to transfer data into knowledge. During my conferral of a doctorate of natural science (Doctor rerum naturalium - Dr.rer.nat.) at the University of Constance I added cognitive science and usability engineering to my skill set. Various research projects and lectures during that time taught me to always keep the user in the center of the development. 

In 2005 I switched from research to industry (hello technology) in order to see my skills applied to the real world. And the hell I did... User Research took me from emergency rooms to car cockpits to showers to chip producers to ... I barely can count the number of different masquerades I had to wear in order to blend into the environment.
It was always fascinating to learn something new about all those different, jobs, peoples, contexts and to make their (work)life a little bit less stressful and more usable and pleasant. That's really a most satisfying part of my work.

During the same time, I have been working as guest lecturer for multiple HCI related topics at various Universities. I really like the work with students who often surprise me with new ways, interpretations and ideas. I don't want to miss this coaching and lecturing. Those cooperations with universities lead to first joint research projects and the founding of the Research & Innovation unit @UID. Some of my publications from this time can be found on this site or on research.net

Meanwhile, at UID I lead teams at various offices and am in charge of the Research & Innovation Unit (UIDlabs). I have the honor and pleasure to work with great minds from different fields - huge cudos for that!

Currently, I investigate User Experience Innovations (UXI) in the broad field of IoT, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and how the heck users will respond to artificial smart-arses in any reality.