About

I didn't start in design.

My first career was in recruitment. For several years I watched how organisations actually make decisions: who gets heard, who gets overlooked, and how trust is built in rooms where authority isn't evenly distributed. At the time it felt like business experience. Looking back, it was an early education in systems and human behaviour - the foundations of design.

I moved into UX in 2017. I didn’t come from a traditional design background. What drew me in was simple: the belief that products should make sense to the people using them.

I spent over four years at Paddy Power Betfair (now Flutter), working on large-scale products in complex, regulated environments. It’s where I learned how constraints shape decisions - and how systems thinking becomes essential when the stakes are high.

Today I'm working at a Lead Product Designer level at JD Sports.

If Flutter taught me how to operate within complexity, JD has pushed me to shape it.

My work focuses on the systems that sit underneath large digital products - authentication, navigation structures, payment integrations, and localisation across multiple markets. These are rarely the most visible parts of a product, but they often determine whether the experience feels coherent or fragmented.

Most of my time is spent before design begins.

I also bring service design methods into how I work - journey mapping, blueprinting, and cross-channel thinking. Particularly useful when complexity lives in the seams between touchpoints rather than within a single interface.

More recently, I’ve been building AI into how I work - using it as a thinking tool rather than a shortcut. In practice that means using AI tools to synthesise research, stress-test assumptions, and surface complexity earlier in the process. I’ve started bringing that into how my team works too, through shared workflows and prompt frameworks that raise the floor for everyone, not just the individual.

This exploration also led me to write an AI-assisted book on how designers can use artificial intelligence as a thinking partner rather than a production tool - a reflection of the same philosophy I apply in my day-to-day work.

I work with teams to clarify problems, challenge assumptions, and expose complexity early. The goal is simple: better decisions before pixels appear.

I’ve worked across teams that include engineers, product managers, trading leadership, payment partners, brand specialists, and operations. Different priorities are inevitable. Alignment is not. Good design work often comes from helping those perspectives align around a shared understanding of the problem.

Outside of delivery, I’m interested in the development of designers - particularly those who arrived in the field through non-traditional routes. The industry often treats unconventional backgrounds as something to explain away. In practice, they can be a source of strength.

In June 2025 I became a dad. It shifted how I think about longevity - the systems we build, the people we mentor, and the impact that lasts longer than a release cycle.

I write occasionally at richardilott.com/thoughts about design, decision-making, and the work behind the work.