Julian Fietkau

My name is Julian Fietkau, I was born in 1987 and right now I live in Munich, Germany. I am currently employed as a post-doc researcher at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, where I am working on methods to understand the behavior of people (individuals and groups) in front of ambient displays.

Areas of qualification

I have studied Computer Science (B.Sc., M.Sc.) and Human-Computer Interaction at the Universität Hamburg and I feel firmly rooted in both of these fields. I am analytically minded and my ability to observe and comprehend rules and connections in systems of all kinds has served me well in many divergent areas of computer science. See the science page if you would like to know more about my research.

I am particularly interested in facets of human-computer interaction (HCI), including but not limited to usability, user experience and joy of use. As a creator of socio-technical systems, I consider myself responsible and committed to give users the best possible experience. This includes the question what “best possible” should even mean in this context. To me, iterative development including real user input is the baseline, and I follow other ideas in the field (e.g. emotional design, gamification) with great interest. I have dipped my toes into game studies, but for now it seems that games suit me better as a hobby than as a research focus.

At the same time, I consider myself a software developer who is comfortable working on software projects alone and in teams. I am open towards all kinds of technologies and languages and have experience with imperative, object-oriented and functional programming, various databases (relational or otherwise) and data storage/exchange formats, as well as best practices in software engineering and software architecture.

I take great joy in passing on my knowledge and am passionate about teaching – see the teaching page for details on my teaching experience and credentials. I have experience giving talks and organizing workshops for all age groups from young children to adults. I feel connected to the principles of Open Access, Creative Commons and the Free Culture movement. Much of my creative output (usually wherever the choice is up to me) can be found on this website under free licenses.

Contact

If you would like to get in contact, the most straightforward way is to . I do not mind receiving unsolicited emails, provided you let me know why you are contacting me so I won’t mistake your message for spam.

Over the last decade I have somewhat fallen out of love with social media, so I don’t tend to be reachable on the major social networks. However, I am active on and you’re invited to connect with me on the Fediverse! Apart from that I also still have an account on that has seen some activity for professional networking, but I’m much more quiet over there.

My research-related online profiles are listed at the top of my publication list. Any other social media profiles you may find on the internet are most likely not me. Please note that there are at least two other Julian Fietkaus out there, one of whom also works in computer science academia.

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