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Years of practice
0
Critical sectors
K+
Users impacted
2°
Degrees (BSc + MSc)
I'm Kon —
A UX designer who makes complex systems
genuinely usable.
Scroll to explore
London · United Kingdom
Who About the designer
Kon

Rigour from
engineering.
Empathy from
design.

I came into UX from an unusual angle — a BSc in Software Engineering before a Masters in UX Design. That combination means I understand the constraints developers work within and the needs of the people using what gets built. I'm rarely the designer who hands over something unbuildable.

Over eight years, I've worked where design genuinely matters: shaping how millions of people interact with UK government services, then doing the same in financial services at Lloyds Banking Group. High-stakes, high-complexity environments where the cost of getting it wrong is real.

I'm drawn to hard problems — bureaucratic systems, financial products, anything people find confusing or intimidating. That's where good design has the most impact.

BSc Software Engineering
MSc UX Design
London, UK
8 Years Experience
Service Design
UI & Visual Design
AI & Emerging Tech
Where Career & context
01 / 02
Government
UK Public Sector · 4 years

Designing services used by the entire UK population. From digital tax returns to citizen benefit applications — every decision had to work for everyone, regardless of digital literacy, device, or circumstance. No exceptions.

GOV.UK Design System Accessibility Service Design User Research Content Design
02 / 02
Banking
Lloyds Banking Group · 4 years

Financial services design at scale. Translating complex regulation and product logic into interfaces that 26 million customers can use with confidence — and that build the trust a bank needs to survive. High consequence, high visibility work.

Financial UX Design Systems Mobile-first FinTech Regulated Products
What Selected work
Case · 01 Government
Redesigning how millions submit their self-assessment tax return
End-to-end redesign of a critical digital service. Replaced opaque HMRC forms with a guided, conversational flow — tested across 8 rounds of research with 200+ participants.
↑ 34% completion · ↓ 50% support contacts · 0 critical accessibility failures
Case · 02 Government
Universal Credit — from 14 steps to a conversation
Restructuring a high-anxiety application journey for people at their most vulnerable. Six months of research, prototyping and iteration across low-income, non-digital, and crisis user groups.
↑ 28% task completion · 92% participant satisfaction in testing
Case · 03 Banking
Permissions and OKYC
From legacy mandates to a digital-first, user-friendly experience. A complex system of permissions and consents, redesigned to give the ability to manage all permissions in one place, with clear language and user control — while navigating complex regulatory requirements.
40% faster delivery cycles · single source of truth across 7 squads
Case · 04 Banking
Providing contact details and marketing choices
Giving existing Business Banking customers a digital way to update contact details and marketing preferences — replacing a broken offline process and closing a critical data gap for the bank.
↑ 22% application starts · ↓ 31% mid-journey drop-off
Why Design principles & approach

Design that
argues
for itself.

After eight years designing for people in high-stakes situations — dealing with taxes, benefits, business banking, design systems — I've developed a way of working that starts with what's actually happening for users, not what we assume. Evidence first. Simplicity always. Systems thinking throughout.

01
Evidence over assumption

Every design decision traced back to something real — a session observation, a data pattern, a pain point observed in research. Intuition has a role, but it needs to answer to evidence.

02
Complexity is a design failure

When something is complicated, it usually means the designer didn't do the hard work. I absorb complexity on behalf of users — so they never have to feel it. That's the job.

03
Think in systems

Screens are the visible tip of a much larger system. I work across the whole — the service, the organisation, the policy constraints — not just the pixels. The best UX fixes things upstream.

"
Good design is not about how it looks. It's about how well it serves the person who needs it most, in their most difficult moment.
When Available & open to opportunities
Let's build
something
that matters.
Email bcosts@gmail.com LinkedIn /in/konstantinos-b CV Download PDF →