LaunchPad Recruits
Rebranded to LaunchpadDesigning the end-to-end hiring experience for a recruitment automation platform combining video interviewing, best-of-breed assessments, and predictive analytics — built to help high-volume recruiters make faster, fairer hiring decisions from one platform.
Context
Launchpad was a video interviewing and recruitment automation platform serving enterprise hiring teams across professional and high-volume roles. I joined as the sole designer in November 2015.
Full product ownership — from interface to interaction to code. No design team, no design manager. Everything from brand to component to shipped feature went through me.
Five years spanning early product build, two AI products developed under a government-funded R&D programme, and eventual acquisition in August 2020.
Before AI in hiring was mainstream. Launchpad was applying machine learning to recruitment decisions before the design patterns for it even existed.
Programme Scale
I designed and built the products delivered under these grants — I wasn't involved in securing the funding. Reference numbers are publicly searchable on the UKRI / Innovate UK funding record.
| Phase | Period | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| ML Proof of Concept | Mar 2015 – Mar 2016 | Innovate UK ref 710650 |
| LaunchPad Predict | Jul 2017 – Jul 2018 | Innovate UK ref 103823 |
| Recruitment Process Automation + VERIFY™ | Mar 2019 – Mar 2020 | Innovate UK ref 105057 |
What I Did
Platform Rebranding
Led a full visual and interaction identity refresh across the platform — evolving the product's brand presence in line with enterprise positioning and competitive context.
White Label Capability
Designed and delivered a white label system enabling enterprise clients to deploy the platform under their own brand — covering theming, logo handling, and configurable UI states across multiple client contexts.
UK Accessibility Compliance
Drove accessibility improvements across the platform to pass the UK government accessibility review — covering contrast, keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and WCAG compliance.
Sales Prototypes
Built high-fidelity interactive prototypes for the sales team to use in enterprise deal pitches — translating product capabilities into compelling, demo-ready experiences that the team could walk prospects through directly.
New Product Initiatives — End-to-End
Owned the full design lifecycle for new product features: research, concept, validation, and final design. No handoffs — from raw insight to shipped interface, all through me.
Coded Admin Interface for Sales
Built a pixel-accurate replica of the admin side of the platform in code — giving the sales team a fully interactive demo environment that mirrored the real product without touching live data or infrastructure.
The AI Products
Predict
An ML model that tiered candidates from video interview responses — Shortlist, Needs Review, Reject. My design challenge: how to surface a probabilistic output as a recruiter workflow without creating over-reliance on the model. The design principle stayed constant — the model triages, humans decide.
VERIFY™
Addressed interviewer bias — not what the AI decided, but how inconsistently humans decided. Designed the feedback UX to surface reviewer patterns in a way that built self-awareness rather than defensiveness. Named directly in government grant ref 105057.
Named in Government Grant — ref 105057
"By using LR's Verify anti-bias reviewing software, RPA will be able to remove interviewer bias and inconsistencies in recruitment to achieve a more diverse and skilled workforce."
Outcomes
Two AI products shipped under a government-funded R&D programme — Predict and VERIFY™ — both in production with enterprise clients.
Sales prototypes and coded demo environment directly supported enterprise deal-closing. White label capability unlocked new client segments.
Platform passed UK government accessibility review — a prerequisite for public sector clients and a significant trust signal for enterprise procurement.
The company was acquired in August 2020 — five years after I joined as the sole designer on a product that didn't yet exist in its acquired form.
External Validation
"Launchpad shines when it comes to diversity and meritocratic recruitment. Want to flag overly harsh or generous interviewers? No problem. Want to identify pockets of potential bias? Again, no problem." — Tom Lakin, Innovation Manager
Reflection
Being the only designer means every decision is yours — and so is every consequence. It builds a kind of end-to-end ownership you can't get any other way.
Designing for ML outputs before XAI was a recognized discipline forced first-principles thinking about trust, transparency, and human agency — instincts that still shape how I work now.
Building the coded sales demo wasn't a detour from design — it was the fastest path to the outcome. The line between designer and engineer is a process artifact, not a capability constraint.