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About

David Edwards-Jones

Lead Product Designer · Bury, Greater Manchester

I'm not stuffy or high-brow about design. I'm just a normal guy who loves taking something complicated and making it easy to use. I've been doing that for 10+ years across enterprise, ecommerce and regulated environments, from SAP platforms at NTT DATA to customer apps at MyProtein and O2.

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10+
years in UX and product design
16
years at O2, from customer service into UX
1st
Class BSc Web Development, Manchester Metropolitan University

How I got here

I didn't start out in design. I spent 16 years at O2, beginning in customer service and working my way through digital operations, web management and business change.

The turning point was a web chat project. We were delivering the UK's first mobile-first web chat, and along the way I realised that building front-end webpages didn't need a maths degree. It was about learning a language. So I went back to university to learn how to build websites.

Part of that degree was a UX unit, and that was it for me. Up to then I'd always been at the end of the process, helping deliver things as a project manager or making changes as the site's content editor. I wanted to be at the start, designing the experience, so I could turn to friends and family and say “that one's mine”.

What I love about it

I really enjoy the problems that come with UX. Simplifying a workflow is part of it, but so is getting a business or a room full of engineers to see the benefit. Once people catch the UX bug, they start noticing problems themselves, and that's when we build better things.

Before THG I was a classic UXer: wireframes, flows, no UI. At THG I was expected to own the UI too, and I've been getting better at it ever since. I love that side of the job, making something that's easy to use and looks good as well. That said, my kids can still draw better than me.

What I believe

“You don't get an instruction manual with an iPhone.”

That's something my old UX manager at NTT DATA used to say, and it's stuck with me. Use common patterns, put things where people expect them to be, and if you can find a moment of joy along the way, even better.

A recent favourite: on the Octopus Energy app, pressing a button on the submit meter reading page turned on my phone's torch. I'm guessing it's there to help people read meters in dark places, and it's exactly the kind of small, thoughtful detail I love.

Working with me

Calm, positive and never rattled.

That's how colleagues tend to describe me, even when I'm pushing back on engineers or senior stakeholders to make sure we do the right thing for users.

Give me a complex problem and I'll usually get it within the ballpark first time. That's honestly my favourite measure of whether a design is right.

Experience

  1. Jul 2026 to present

    Lead Product Designer · Crown Gas & Power

    Leading design on a ground-up rebuild of the suite of apps the business runs on, and introducing product and design practice to an organisation new to it.

  2. Jun 2025 to Jun 2026

    UX Designer · THG

    Designed the Fabrc Cloud purchase journey, then moved to MyProtein to work on app personalisation, Fuel Coach and an interactive Outfit Builder, using coded prototypes throughout.

  3. Jan 2019 to Mar 2025

    User Experience Consultant · NTT DATA Business Solutions

    Designed UX for SAP platforms and business applications, leading research, workshops and journey mapping for clients including Warburtons, Synthomer, Wrights Dental, HSS Tools and Tarmac.

    • Gas connection request form, Wales & West Utilities. Reworked a confusing online form for requesting a new gas connection that drove repeat calls, and brought the client's new mapping software into the journey.

  4. May 2016 to Jan 2019

    Online User Experience Designer · O2

    Delivered end-to-end UX for O2's web and app platforms, the last step of 16 years at O2 that started in customer service and moved through digital operations, web management and business change.

    • Web and app UX. Improved key ecommerce journeys on O2's web and app platforms with guerrilla testing, after working on the UK's first mobile-first web chat.

How I work

Start with the mess

I take complex, messy problems through research, journey mapping and workshops until the real issues are clear, often across several teams who all see the process differently.

Make it real early

I design and build. Using AI-assisted development, I make working, data-driven prototypes that stakeholders and users can actually use, not just look at.

Bring people with me

A lot of my work is with senior stakeholders and teams new to product and design. I'd rather show people than tell them, and help them catch the UX bug along the way.

Stay close to the build

I work with engineering on what can actually be built, from naming conventions to frontend implementation, so good ideas survive the journey to production.

Prototypes that hand over cleanly

AI has changed how I prototype, and one of the biggest wins has been the handover to development.

Using AI-assisted development, I build prototypes in whatever frameworks the engineering team already uses. At both THG and Crown Gas & Power that's meant Next.js and Tailwind CSS, but the point is to fit in with the team, not bring my own stack.

That means developers don't just get a design file and a spec. They get something they can open, run and read, with the states, logic and responsive behaviour already worked through. I've found it makes the handover to development much smoother, both at THG and now at Crown Gas & Power.

  • The team's frameworks

    Built in the same frameworks the engineers use, so the prototype speaks the same language as the build.

  • In GitHub

    Version-controlled and shareable, so developers can see exactly how something works.

  • Less lost in translation

    States, data and edge cases are already worked through in something people can actually use.

Skills and tools

Product and UX

  • Discovery and user research
  • Journey and service mapping
  • Interaction design
  • Design systems
  • Usability testing
  • Accessible, responsive design (WCAG)

Leadership

  • Senior stakeholder buy-in
  • Workshop facilitation
  • Mentoring designers
  • Introducing product and design practice

Design and build

  • AI-assisted prototyping
  • Figma
  • Next.js
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Node.js
  • GitHub
  • HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Domains

  • Energy and regulated services
  • Enterprise workflows
  • SAP Fiori and Commerce
  • Ecommerce and B2B portals
  • Mobile apps

Let's talk

Want the full story?

My CV covers each role in more detail, and I'm always happy to talk through the work behind these case studies.

Download my CV (PDF, 40 KB)Get in touch