Fabian Hemmert

Why organisations work with Fabian Hemmert

• He brings a working academic’s depth to a question most strategy teams treat too lightly: what does good human-computer interaction actually look like when AI is in the loop.
• His “Research Through Design” approach produces tested prototypes, not slideware. The “Data Touch” project, a finger ring that advances presentations by recognising objects, is the kind of artefact that shifts how a leadership team thinks about interface design.
• He speaks fluently across audiences. A PhD from Berlin University of the Arts, prior commercial work at Nintendo and Marvel, and stage time at SXSW, Lift and the Chaos Communication Congress give him range from board to design floor.
• He reframes AI as a design problem rather than a deployment problem. For organisations wrestling with adoption, that reframing tends to unlock conversations the technical roadmap cannot.

Biography highlights

• Professor of Interface and User Experience Design, University of Wuppertal, heading the department since 2016.
• Dr.-Ing. from Berlin University of the Arts, with doctoral research at the Design Research Lab in collaboration with Telekom Innovation Labs.
• TEDxBerlin speaker; talk “The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone” hosted on TED.com.
• Conference platforms include SXSW, Lift, Chaos Communication Congress, EuroVision TV Summit, CeBIT, TEDxSalzburg and TEDxInnsbruck.
• Earlier industry experience at Nintendo of Europe and Marvel Comics during interface design studies.
• Published academic work on tangible interfaces and design research methodology, including a PhD thesis and book chapter on the Repertory Grid Technique.

Biography

Most digital products are built for the system, not the human using it. That mismatch is becoming harder to hide as AI moves from the back office into daily work. Fabian Hemmert’s research at the University of Wuppertal is a sustained attempt to close that gap through design rather than user training.

He runs the Interface and User Experience Design department at Wuppertal’s industrial design school and earned his Dr.-Ing. at Berlin University of the Arts, working alongside Telekom Innovation Labs. The methodology is “Research Through Design”: build a prototype, put it in front of people, learn what changes. Projects such as “Data Touch”, a finger ring that controls a presentation by recognising the objects in a speaker’s hand, are how the research becomes argument.

Earlier in his career he worked for Nintendo of Europe and Marvel Comics, which gives the academic frame a commercial spine. His public platform includes TEDxBerlin, SXSW, Lift, the Chaos Communication Congress, the EuroVision TV Summit and CeBIT. The through-line is consistent across all of them: intuitive technology is a design outcome, not an accident.

For senior leaders, the value is a corrective. Strategy decks treat AI and digital tools as capability questions. Hemmert’s work makes the case that adoption, engagement and trust are decided much earlier, at the interface, and that organisations underestimate how much of their digital strategy is being shaped by design defaults they never examined.

Key speaking topics

• Human-computer interaction
• Designing for AI in everyday use
• Tangible and embodied interfaces
• The future of mobile and personal devices
• Research Through Design methodology
• Design education and creative capability
• Play as a method for innovation

Ideal for

• Chief design officers, heads of product and CX leaders rethinking digital interfaces in light of AI.
• Innovation and R&D teams looking for an academic perspective grounded in built prototypes.
• Leadership audiences at technology, telecoms, consumer electronics and media organisations.
• Universities, design schools and conferences focused on the future of human-machine interaction.

Audience outcomes

• A sharper sense of why interface design, not model capability, often decides whether an AI deployment lands.
• Exposure to working prototypes that reframe assumptions about how digital systems should feel to use.
• A vocabulary for discussing tangibility, embodiment and intuition as commercial design variables.
• Confidence to challenge default assumptions about screens, devices and digital workflows in their own organisation.