Lou Millar-Machugh

Lou Millar-Machugh

I'm a strategic interaction designer in Glasgow. I look at the gap between what a product says it's trying to do and what its technology actually makes people do: the assumptions about people, behaviour, markets and society that quietly become interfaces, incentives, flows and language.

I do interface analysis, research and design for founders, independent tech, campaigns and new organisations. I also write and make videos about the politics of technology, which means you can read exactly how I think before you ever pay me to do it.

Lou, in tortoiseshell glasses and a black leather jacket, sitting in a café booth

Selected work

All projects
  1. 2026 Creating an online presence for a new dispute resolution serviceHow do you make a new organisation feel credible before it has a track record?Website design, Information design
  2. 2026 Turning strong opinions into a systemA founder had a lot of convictions and no way to turn them into output. How do you get from one to the other?Design thinking
  3. 2026 Omniana product strategyWhat happens when an app for reflection starts behaving like a productivity app?Interface analysis
  4. 2026 BTN news aggregator designCan a news product create a different relationship with attention?Interaction design, Visual design
  5. 2026 Take Back Big Tech: visual identity and websiteA visual identity and campaign website for a UK pressure group and think tank holding Big Tech accountable, designed to feel like a movement, not a brand.Visual identity, Web design

How I work

Working together

I start from what something makes people do, whether it's an interface, an identity, a website or an email. Analysis, research and design move into one another as a project needs them.

  1. Interface analysis

    A close read of what your product actually asks people to do, and who that serves.

  2. Research

    Finding out how people actually use and understand what you've made.

  3. Product and interface design

    Flows, interactions and systems that do what you say your product does.

  4. Brand and identity

    Identities built around what you want people to do, not just how you want to look.

  5. Websites

    Sites designed and built, where the structure follows what the visitor came to do.

  6. Communications and content

    Copy, onboarding, email and video that say what you actually do.

  7. Strategy for founders

    Turning convictions into a product, an audience and a way of working.

Writing

Writing and elsewhere