Eriol Fox

Lead Design & Phd Researcher

Eriol Fox

Lead Design & Phd Researcher

Eriol Fox

Design research and UX in humanitarian and human rights technologies

Eriol has been working in the non-profit, humanitarian technology sector for the past four years immersed in how to build technology products and services that empower and give access to people in the under-represented majority world (commonly referred to as ‘developing countries’ or 'the global south') often around difficult topics like Genocide, access and rights to democratic processes, gender-based violence and in challenging circumstances such as informal settlements (slums) and locations where radicalisation is culturally pervasive.

When we think about the future and progression of design, how do we think in a way that explicitly includes and centres the people, places and communities facing extremely difficult political and societal challenges and how technology and society operates differently across borders.

The talk summarises design approaches and research, UX design for humanitarian and human rights projects and how designers can approach difficult topics when researching these areas or practicing design in these communities/locations.

About

Eriol has been working as a designer for 10+ years working in for-profits and then NGO's and open-source software organisations, working on complex problems like sustainable food systems, peace-building and crisis response technology. Eriol now works at Superbloom design, research, open-source and technology projects.

Eriol is a part-time funded PhD researcher at Newcastle University's Open Lab looking at how designers participate in humanitarian and human rights focussed open-source software projects.

They are also part of the core teams at Open Source Design and Human Rights Centred Design working group and Sustain UX & Design working group and help hosts podcast about open source and design.

Eriol is a non-binary, queer person who uses they/them pronouns.