Project Description
What is Ladbrokes?
Ladbrokes is one of the UK’s most recognisable betting brands, with millions of customers engaging online and in retail. Its sportsbook offers a wide range of markets across football, horse racing, tennis, and more, making it a key product for sports fans.
Problem Statement
The homepage needed a cleaner, faster, and more user-focused design. Our goal was to reduce clutter, improve load times, and surface relevant content more effectively, while maintaining brand consistency and supporting a seamless betting experience, especially during the Premier League season.
Key Metrics
Total Bets Placed - Total number of bets placed using the Popular Accas module
Individual Bettors - Total number of unique users placing bets
Total Stake Amount - Total value of bets placed via Popular Accas
Load Time - Average time for the module to fully load
User Feedback
We worked with our CX team to gather insights from surveys and customer support feedback. This gave us a clear view of user pain points and preferences, helping us prioritise improvements and ensure the redesign addressed real customer needs.
We ran unmoderated tests through UserTesting.com, asking users for their first impressions of the homepage. This gave us honest, unfiltered feedback on how real users perceive and interact with the site - helping validate design decisions and highlight areas for improvement.
Workshop – Identifying Issues
We ran a collaborative workshop with stakeholders across departments to uncover key blockers and pain points. By bringing together diverse perspectives, we identified and prioritised requirements that balanced customer needs with business goals. These were then grouped into strategic pillars to focus our efforts and guide the redesign.
User testing showed that key content was often missed - especially when buried in carousels - leading to lower engagement. Analytics confirmed this, revealing sharp drop-offs in interaction where content was less accessible. These insights reinforced the need for a more intuitive layout that makes important information easier to find.
Competitor Analysis
We reviewed competitor homepages to understand how leading brands present content, structure navigation, and highlight key information. By benchmarking layout, imagery, and user flow, we identified best practices and standout ideas to inform our own redesign. These insights helped shape a strategy focused on clearer content delivery and stronger user engagement.
Bet365
Bet365 curates its homepage dynamically, adapting content to user preferences and highlighting relevant events in real time. This ensures timely, personalised engagement.
The design is sleek and minimal, with generous spacing that clearly separates sections and improves readability. The interface feels streamlined and intuitive, reinforcing ease of use.
Paddy Power
Paddy Power’s homepage features dynamic content that updates throughout the day, while heavily promoting offers and targeted content to drive engagement. High-margin betting opportunities are prominently surfaced in line with user preferences and betting trends.
Like Bet365, it uses a minimalist design with ample white space and a restrained colour palette - making the interface easy to scan and reducing cognitive load.
William Hill
William Hill organises content around upcoming events, rather than time-based updates. However, multiple navigation paths lead to duplication and potential confusion.
While their UI design system is well-defined, the page feels content-heavy, which can overwhelm users. That said, clear visual breakpoints help with scanning and improve overall readability.
Mobile Screens
Early Analytics
Since the reset program was released in phases, we captured impact iteratively, with early analytics from the “Popular Accas” module offering a useful snapshot. However, early analytics from the “Popular Accas” module - included in the initial release - offer a useful snapshot. We tracked its performance during a typical Saturday of Premier League fixtures to better understand user engagement.
Performance - especially load speed - is a key priority for the Ladbrokes Sportsbook. To support this, we streamlined the codebase by removing redundancies and reducing inconsistencies across modules and components.
Next Steps
The rollout will continue in phases, allowing us to learn from user data and feedback as each stage goes live. We’ve already implemented changes across key journeys - including sport landing and event details pages - and will build on these foundations iteratively.
As we deepen our understanding of user behaviour, we're working closely with our tech and data teams to enhance personalisation and deliver a more tailored experience.
A key milestone on the horizon is migrating Ladbrokes to the Entain Design System - a move that will unify the experience, improve consistency, and streamline future development.
User feedback also highlighted the absence of a search function. While not feasible in the initial release, it remains a priority for future phases.