Paul Wilshaw

Experience

Founder, Designed for Humans (2023 – Present)

A design and product consultancy for scale-ups, SMEs and enterprises: UX strategy, design systems, team training, product strategy, accessibility, branding and AI adoption. Its products include Design Systems for Humans.

• Built Design Systems for Humans, our design system platform for product, design and engineering teams and the AI tools they now work alongside. Its Figma plugin, published on the Figma Community, generates variables, styles, components, a style guide and a WCAG contrast matrix.
• Gave Design Systems for Humans an MCP server, so AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude, VS Code, Windsurf) build with a team's real tokens and components instead of guessing, plus two-way Figma sync, GitHub token sync, governance rules and automated UAT.
• Built it with Claude Code, alongside my own Claude skills for UAT and team standards, the UX Tickets Figma widget for Azure DevOps and the Icon Foundry Figma plugin.
• Runs AI training and coaching for design and product teams, covering how to use AI tools day to day and where they need a human checking the output.
• Client work includes On the Go Tours, Secarma and Cytix.
• On the Go Tours: built a new design system on Tailwind, the framework their developers already used, and (in early 2023) a GPT-powered tour finder that suggests a tour from your preferences and dates, then shows the itinerary.
• Increased On the Go Tours' booking conversion by 300% through small improvements and experiments across customer segments, and ran paired programming sessions to build good UX practice into the code.
• Cytix: wrote and illustrated a comic explaining cyber-security methods, to help win new business.
• 5-star rated on Clutch. Top-rated in Manchester for product design, UX and branding.

Chief Product and Experience Officer (CPO), Behavioural biometrics AI start-up (confidential) (May 2023 – May 2025)

Led product and experience at an AI start-up using phone sensor data to recognise people by how they move.

• Founded and led the team that built an iOS app and an SDK using phone sensor data to train machine learning models.
• Cut the time to get a score from the model from 30 seconds to 8 by averaging behaviour over time.
• Wrote and designed the investor pitch deck for the company's angel funding round.
• Adapted the product roadmap to the EU AI Act and the UK Digital Identity Trust Framework.

Advisory Board Member, Blake Mill (Present)

Bringing product, digital and innovation thinking to a craftsmanship-led shirt maker (and its bold shirts).

• Introduced digital twins to shorten the path from product concept to sales pipeline.
• Helped reshape sales and marketing strategy and set product direction during scale-up.

Co-Founder, GhostPosts.ai (Jul 2023 – Dec 2025)

Co-founded an AI start-up whose prompt tool helped people new to AI write social posts, with inclusive and accessible writing built into the prompts.

• Gave people a low-pressure way to learn AI tools without needing to learn prompt engineering first.

Head of UX Design, ANS Group (formerly UKFast) (Jul 2021 – May 2023)

After the UKFast and ANS merger, brought two brands, two tech stacks and 100+ products onto one design system.

• Built a design system adopted across the business: 1,000+ components, 900+ custom icons and 300+ illustrations.
• Led UX strategy for the merged business and made user research a standard step, so teams tested ideas before building them.
• Created a roadmap framework linked to Jira and Azure DevOps, so every department could see what was being built and why.
• Introduced a pricing strategy that stopped the business competing on price alone.
• Replaced static sales decks with online presentations that stayed up to date.

Head of UX and UI, Blue Prism (Jan 2019 – May 2021)

Joined a listed intelligent automation company that had grown by acquisition, with fragmented user journeys, several tech stacks and no UX function.

• Built the UX department from zero to 20+ product designers, researchers and UI developers, onshore and nearshore.
• Created an award-winning, accessible design system that engineering adopted.
• Led UX for Blue Prism V7, which brought fragmented automation products into one platform, and moved legacy software towards an accessible, cloud-first platform with independent releases.
• Simplified screens for power users, cutting onboarding time, complaints and reliance on consultants.
• Rewrote the recruitment process and job descriptions to reach a more diverse talent pool, and added accessibility training to company-wide onboarding.

Head of Creative Technology and Innovation, Barclays UK (Feb 2017 – Jan 2019)

Ran the team that tested ideas with customers within weeks. Working prototypes came out of two-week sprints, so investment decisions were backed by what customers actually did.

• Managed the team behind the UK's first cheque-scanning feature. Our apprentices pitched the Chancellor of the Exchequer on changing the law on storing cheques.
• Introduced 3D printing to Barclays, with the 3D printer my team won when I coached them to first place at a Google hackathon. It later inspired the maker spaces across the Eagle Labs network.
• Led lab engineers across 20+ Barclays Eagle Labs, plus design for Eagle Labs' customer and colleague apps covering AI and Open Banking.
• Shaped the Digital Wings, Eagle UX and Eagle X programmes, and helped Pingit and Barclays Mobile Banking reach an NPS of 80+.
• Ran innovation projects with start-ups and established businesses, including 3D-printed bones for the NHS, interactive point-of-sale displays for Morrisons and VR Mars training for schools.

Head of Technology and Design, Order with Fork (May 2016 – Nov 2016)

Joined a funded food-tech start-up that had an idea but no product, brand or architecture.

• Shipped the app to the App Store in 33 days and to Google Play within 60.
• Created the product architecture, user journeys and brand, plus a cloud service for IoT devices that cut the cost of integrating with point-of-sale providers.
• Led the crowdfunding campaigns.

Lead Creative Consultant, Barclays (Jan 2012 – Jun 2016)

Led 12+ designers and developers internationally on Barclays Mobile Banking, Pingit and Barclaycard across iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Mobile Banking and Pingit were both rated five stars in the App Store while I was there.

• The apps won 68+ awards across Mobile Banking, Pingit and Barclaycard.
• Led design and development of the DADI award-winning Childline and NSPCC app, with Amaze.
• Led the UX team on a blockchain-based global currency and foreign exchange platform that worked with the bank's existing systems.
• Paired senior staff with apprentices in the UK and Lithuania on live work, and mentored the apprentices myself. Several went on to Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, and most now lead teams of their own.

Senior Creative Producer, 2ergo group plc (Aug 2011 – Jan 2012)

Designed user journeys, interfaces and HTML5 sites for Pizza Express, Ask, RAC, Phones 4U and HSS.

Work with me

Fractional head of design

Senior design leadership for a few days a month. I cover strategy, team coaching, hiring and design systems, and I sit in on the product meetings where the big calls get made.

Train your design team

Workshops and coaching for design and product teams, built around your own product and screens. Popular topics are using AI tools well, building and running a design system, accessibility, and user research on a small budget. Half-day sessions, or ongoing coaching for team leads.

Get AI building on-brand

I'll connect your tokens and components to Cursor, Claude and VS Code through an MCP server, set up Figma and GitHub sync, and write the rules that keep AI-generated code consistent with your design system.

UX strategy and audit

I'll look at your product, your research and your design system, and work out where the experience is costing you customers or wasting your team's time. That includes components that don't match the code, accessibility gaps and the handover arguments that keep coming back. You get a prioritised roadmap your team can start on the following Monday.

Book a call through the contact page.

What people say

• “Paul has been one of the best things to happen to my design career. I knew meeting him for the first time I wanted to work and learn from him… He helps build you up, really strives for collaboration and safe spaces whilst being forward thinking with design principles, systems and processes - he's truly ahead of the game. I couldn't have asked for a better mentor throughout my time at Blue Prism and I really do hope we get to work together again.” Stacey Rey, Lead UX Designer
• “Paul is the best designer and manager I have had the privilege of working with, he is constantly keeping up with new and modern design trends and is always striving to create new and interesting UX and UI with whatever project he is working on. Paul is always pushing anyone he works with to strive to produce the best work possible and has always managed to get the best out of people as well as creating fantastic work himself. It has always been a privilege to work with Paul and I would love to and hope to work with him again in the future.” Si Fisher, Head of Mobile
• “Paul was one of the first faces I saw at ANS and I was impressed with his attention to UI as well as the user experience and journey. He always has an eye on the visual and it's obvious in everything he does. His designs and the thoughts behind them are amazing and I know in the future if I have anything he will be the first person I think about. Truly amazing.” Ajmal Khan, ANS Group
• “Paul always produces amazing work, with great consideration of the requirements from the user, platform and amount of development work needed to implement features.” Jamie Edge, now Staff Software Engineer at Apple

Speaking and community

• Speaker: Finovate Europe, FinTech Talents, ProductTank, Manchester Tech Festival, Lancashire Tech Summit, UX Crunch and NUX, plus the universities of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Lancaster, and the EY Foundation.
• Faster Horses podcast: Co-host of the UX and design podcast, with 15,500+ downloads.
• AI trainer and team coach: AI training and coaching for design and product teams. Hackathon wins at Microsoft, Google and Facebook (now Meta).
• Free resources and writing: 25,000+ downloads of free FigJam templates, and 30,000+ views on Medium.
• School governor since 2017: At Grosvenor Road Primary School, championing disadvantaged pupils and SEND, with careers days for children with autism and disabilities and AI sessions for Year 6.

Core skills

• UX strategy: UX strategy, Experience strategy, UX maturity assessment, Customer-insight-led roadmaps, Prioritisation, Research operations, Measuring UX (NPS, SUS, conversion)
• Training and upskilling: UX team training, AI training for designers, Coaching, Mentoring, Workshop facilitation, Apprenticeship programmes, Onboarding and career frameworks
• Design leadership: Head of design, Design strategy, DesignOps, Building and managing teams of 20+, Hiring, Working with product and engineering
• Design systems: Design tokens, Figma variables, Component libraries, Style guides, Bespoke design systems, Multi-brand systems, Systems for product, marketing and brand teams, Combined systems for consistency, AI-ready design systems, AI context, Design-to-code sync, Engineering collaboration, Delivery, Theming, dark mode and high contrast, Versioning and releases, Migration, Adoption, Proving ROI, Governance, Documentation
• UX and product design: User-centred design, User research, Usability testing, A/B testing and experimentation, Prototyping, UI design, Interaction design, Journey mapping, Service design, Design thinking
• Accessibility: WCAG, Inclusive design, Accessible design systems
• AI: AI product strategy, Generative AI, Large language models (LLMs), Prompt design, Model Context Protocol (MCP), Claude Code, Machine learning products
• Product: Product strategy, Product discovery, Roadmapping, Stakeholder management, Agile and Scrum
• Tools: Figma, FigJam, Claude Code, Jira, Azure DevOps, Miro, HTML and CSS
• Sectors: Fintech and banking, B2B SaaS, Enterprise software, Intelligent automation, Cloud hosting, Food tech, Retail

Education and certifications

• MSc Communication and Future Media, University of Salford
• BA Communication with TV Production, University of Manchester
• Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner, IBM
• Professional Scrum Product Owner, Scrum.org
• Jira, LinkedIn Learning

Awards and recognition

• 68+ awards for Barclays apps: Pingit (30+), Barclays Mobile Banking (26) and Barclaycard (12)
• DADI award for the Childline and NSPCC app
• Hackathon wins: first place at Microsoft, first place at Facebook (now Meta), first place at Google (the prize was a 3D printer), and third place at Hack Manchester
• Runner-up, Man of the Year 2024, Women's Business Club awards, for diversity, inclusion and mentoring
• Finalist, UX Design, UXUK Awards
• Winner, People's Choice Award, WeaveFM
• Judge, UK Company Culture Awards