About Cone Trees

A clarity-first UX consultancy

Cone Trees is a UX-led digital consultancy focused on usability, human-centered design, and building digital products grounded in real user needs. We work across research, architecture, design, and delivery to help organisations create digital experiences that stay clear, usable, and sustainable over time.

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Our story

Built for complex products that need clarity

Cone Trees grew out of years of hands-on UX work inside global teams, helping large products become easier to use, easier to explain, and easier to scale.

We partner with organisations when complexity starts to slow things down, aligning teams around a clear structure and a shared point of view.

15+ years

UX strategy, IA, and delivery across complex systems.

Global delivery

Experience across Europe, the USA, and Asia.

Trusted by

VISA, Singtel, DHL, Harvard, Western Union.

Work modes

Research, architecture, design, and implementation.

What we do

Clarity-first UX across the full lifecycle

We focus on usability and structure, helping teams make confident decisions from discovery through delivery.

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UX research

Insight-led discovery that makes user needs visible to teams.

UX architecture

Information design that keeps complex structures clear and findable.

UX-led design & build

End-to-end delivery that preserves usability through implementation.

Web and product platforms

Websites, web applications, and internal platforms built for scale.

Our work & experience

Complex systems, proven outcomes

Our work spans complex, large-scale digital systems as well as focused product and platform builds.

Global redesigns

Led global redesigns for Standard Chartered.

Award-winning platforms

Delivered award-winning intranets and platforms.

Trusted clients

VISA, Singtel, DHL, Harvard, and Western Union.

Trusted by organisations operating at scale

Who leads Cone Trees

Abhay Rautela

Cone Trees is led by Abhay Rautela, with deep UX practice across global teams and industries.

15+ years of experience in UX and user-centered design.
End-to-end practice: research to IA to interaction to evaluation.
Experience across Europe, the USA, and Asia.

Recognition & contribution

Work that informs the field

Work featured in leading web and design books.
Creator of UX Quotes and The UX Bookmark.

The Designer's Web Handbook: What You Need to Know to Create for the Web

The Web Designer's Idea Book Volume 2: More of the Best Themes, Trends and Styles in Website Design

What we build

Products grounded in real needs

We create UX-led deliverables that keep complex platforms clear, usable, and scalable.

UX research and synthesis

Turning insights into clear priorities and decision-ready evidence.

UX architecture and information design

Structuring content, flows, and navigation for complex products.

UX-led design and build

Designing and delivering interfaces that stay usable at scale.

Websites, web apps, and platforms

Multi-device experiences built for teams and users alike.

The name

Why the name Cone Trees?

Cone Trees visualise relationships in hierarchical data and are useful for card-sorting analysis. They depict hierarchies as cones, with the parent at the vertex and children at the base, making relationships easier to interpret.

The concept was introduced by George Robertson, Jock Mackinlay, and Stuart Card at PARC.

Let's talk

Ready to
improve clarity?

If you're planning a redesign, scaling a product, or untangling complexity, share a little context and we'll suggest next steps.

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