Fiona’s path weaves through UX research, design, and technology, leading them to found Macknowlogist, where they help businesses build digital products that truly solve the right problems. Beyond client work, they’re passionate about lifting underrepresented voices in tech as the leader of Brighton’s Ladies that UX community.
Which talk/panel did you speak at?
Sustainable Development from the Inside Out: Driving Change Within Tech Teams || Building Sustainably as a Digital Product Team
Can you share a bit about your background?
A UX researcher, designer, strategist and digital sustainability enthusiast. As founder and director at Macknowlogist, I help small to medium-sized businesses create stellar digital products and experiences.
What inspired you to speak at EVOLVE [25]?
The encouragement, enthusiasm, and vision of the EVOLVE [25] organisers and the Silicon Brighton team.
What was the key message or idea you most wanted the audience to take away from your talk?
For the first panel, I wanted leaders to think proactively about the behaviours that they need to encourage and cultivate from the ground up and from strategy down to support digital sustainability. This involves recognising and celebrating internal best practices that exist, developing new approaches with your team/s through co-design, and enabling positive behaviours to persist through measurement, validation, policy, tooling and infrastructure. Sustainability can become the natural rule, not the exception, with the right support.
For the second panel, I wanted delegates to realise the potential within their own product teams. Every role in a product team and therefore each person can progress towards ‘greening’ their craft. This is however a team sport and thus our dream team of a panel. Also, I wanted to showcase the amazing emerging tech talent of soon-to-be graduates from University of Brighton. Definitely reach out to our panelists if you are looking for UX/product people!
Were there any audience reactions or questions that really stood out to you?
Darshneek’s question about what style of UX design is most sustainable. We could run a whole session on this question as the question asked whether minimalist design is more sustainable. As is frequently the case in design, it depends. As minimalist design can take many forms, however if we look at certain versions of it, it can be minimal text with statement fonts, lots of white space, and very large signature images. In this case it would not be particularly sustainable, as statement fonts might need to load from a third-party services, lots of white pixels use more power/battery on the device, and large images and onscreen loading are also resource intensive. The flip side is minimalist+sustainable design, which Green SEO Brighton do really well on their site (https://greenseo.org/); a standard font, a dark theme, and no images. However, this style won’t fit with all business needs, so it important to find a balance between business needs and trying the best you can to be sustainable. The plus side being that by doing this, you also support Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
How does the topic you spoke about connect to your current work or passion projects?
am an enthusiastic member of Green Software Brighton and would like us to think beyond sustainability to regenerative practices on product teams. Going forward I would like to create more opportunities for product teams to learn together and think bigger when creating products. This will lead to better products, which are also kinder to our planet.
What emerging trends or challenges in tech (or your field) are you most excited about right now?
A challenge I have encountered is an emerging belief that AI can be used to do User Research or design UI components without a trained UXer or Researcher in the mix. Essentially if you do not have a clear journey and understanding of your users, your interface could be ‘shiny’ but also utterly unusable. This may not cost you money in the short term, but wasted use of AI is costing the earth and is ultimately wasted effort and could lead to reputational damage. Keep focus on why you are creating a tool and who is it for, also remember GenAI is still just a tool and it doesn’t understand what it is like to be a human or what humans need.
What advice would you give to someone looking to make an impact in your area of expertise?
Listen to your users, watch how they use things, consider who you are not including and could be. Before jumping to adopt a new tool, ask do I have something that does that already and what impacts might using this tool have? This includes impacts that you can see/measure and the ones that you cannot see/measure. Ask yourself, is the value of the output from the tool proportionate to the effort and cost of the input? Cost includes the energy-use cost. By asking this simple question, you can still innovate while bringing a mindful approach to the ‘cost’ and impact of your activities.
How do you see the future evolving in your industry over the next few years?
I hope that the trend away from hiring UXers and Researchers reverses. Right now there is too much of a focus on how to make the product quickly and cheaply, rather than why people want to use the the product and how to support meaningful product growth over time. As a user I see this too with many products adopting what I call ‘the magic box of click me’ design pattern–an open text box with suggested prompts placed before the core functionality of the product/application. Most of the time this gets in the way of the task I want to achieve with the tool and it slows down my productivity rather than the intention to make it more efficient. We need to bring greater nuance to the use of AI so that it is used in a contextually relevant way to bring true value to customers.
What was your favourite part of the EVOLVE experience?
Collaborating with my fellow panelists, both on the day and in preparation for the day.
What’s next for you? Any upcoming projects, initiatives, or goals you’re excited to share?
LTUX Brighton, the group I lead, and Green Software Brighton are collaborating to run a Green Practitioner Study Day on 6th of August (https://lu.ma/8su4fxhh). LTUX Brighton are also running the international conference for Ladies that UX Brighton on the 17th and 18th of September at Ironworks Studios, this is a big deal like the Olympics! We are still seeking sponsors, large and small to help make the event possible and accessible to those who can benefit from it the most – tickets and details at: https://www.talk-ux.com/
What’s one book, podcast, or resource that’s inspired you recently?
Erika Flowers on the NNG Podcast, as the former Senior AI & Digital Transformation Leader / Digital Service Expert at NASA–Erika is a huge inspiration to me taking a human-centric, pragmatic, and truly innovative approach to the ways she thinks about AI (https://youtu.be/w5J1u88GODo?feature=shared).
How can people connect with you or follow your work after the event?
You can connect with me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionamacneill/) and you can read about what I am up to at my website and blog (https://fionamacneill.co.uk/).
Anything else you would like to share with our community?
Let this be the start…