Philip ThonboUI/UX · AI · Experience Strategy

PHILIP
THONBO

Product Design Lead
AI Strategy | Harness + Context
26 years turning ambiguity into clarity for LEGO, Coca-Cola, Microsoft & Bang & Olufsen - now pioneering the design field with AI workflows.

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Design
26years
Code
10K+hours
App Store #1
3apps
Design Lead
10years
Coca-ColaMicrosoftFordLEGONetflixTelenorBang & OlufsenArlaSASGrundfosNettoBoConceptDFDSCoopDRDSBTV 2BilkafoetexSalling Group
01 | Selected work

Systems, Interfaces and Avatars

5 case studies
Flagship · Trifork2023 → nowProduct Design Lead

LEGO House

A full redesign of LEGO's Brand lighthouse : LEGO House's digital ecosystem - then beyond the screen entirely. One project, three very different phases: pixels, agents, and people.

Phase 01
LEGO House digital ecosystem

The digital ecosystem

Full website redesign plus redesigned and animated exhibition experiences - from robot controllers and food-order touchscreens to computer-vision brick scanners.

  • Website + 30+ touch screens
  • UI design & design system
  • Lottie UI animations
  • Unity development
Phase 02
LEGO Minifig AI Avatars

LEGO Minifig AI Avatars

An early public-space GenAI avatar prototype, conceived and prototyped with GPT-3.5 and Python in 2023. GenAI woven into the visit, not bolted on.

  • GenAI product design
  • GPT-3.5 + Python prototyping
  • Interactive 265inch screen design
  • Human-factors first
Phase 03
LEGO Masters Academy

LEGO Masters Academy

No screens at all - pure human factors. The systems that keep a live, playful learning experience on-brand and repeatable at scale.

  • Experience Design system
  • Play-test & evaluation frameworks
  • Consistency Frameworks
  • Facilitator guidelines
Digital human experiences

Designing AI avatars that look and speak like people.

Two projects, 2024. Real-time video streaming. Photorealistic.

Building AI avatars used to mean 3D modelling, rigging and render pipelines. Now it means designing for real-time generated video, where the digital human is synthesised on the fly.

Social work · Training

Trauma-scenario training agent

A training tool for social workers: realistic AI-driven child personas simulating difficult, trauma-affected behaviour. Workers practice high-stakes conversations in a safe, repeatable environment - before facing them in the real world.

  • High-stakes conversational UX
  • Human-in-the-loop safety design
  • Behaviour simulation
  • Professional training workflow
Museum · Exhibition

Digital human CMS for museums

A content management system that let curators invent new digital humans - name, appearance, voice, character - and deploy them as interactive figures inside live exhibitions. Guests walked up and talked to them.

  • CMS for digital humans
  • Real-time avatar interaction
  • Exhibition installation design
Technology partners explored
ElevenLabsHeyGenRunway

Other relevant cases

B2B SaaS CMS
B2B · SaaS · UI System

B2B SaaS CMS

A scalable interface system that turns a complex content backend into something teams enjoy operating - clarity over configuration.

UI systemDesign tokensComponent library
BJ-Gear configurator
B2B · E-commerce · Configurator

BJ-Gear configurator

An industrial product configurator guiding engineers through thousands of gear & motor permutations toward the right order - fast and confidently.

Guided sellingConfigurator UXCRO
UX research case study
Research · UX

UX research case study

A structured effort from contextual inquiry to synthesis that moved a roadmap from opinion to evidence - Level 3 knowledge, shared across the team.

Contextual inquirySynthesisDecision support
B2B e-commerce
B2B · E-commerce

B2B e-commerce

Commerce patterns designed around real procurement behaviour - account-based pricing, bulk ordering and approval flows that respect how buyers actually buy.

Commerce patternsAccount flowsCRO
+40 other casesreaching 20 years back on thonbo.com
UX Nordic 2026
Talk: UX Nordic · AI & Design Systems

Design systems are AI inputs now.

Structure, metadata and clarity matter more than ever.

The argument I make on stage: we need to pull design systems from Figma into code and take ownership over the design there. Figma's layer structure is slow and cumbersome for AI to read - in Storybook the system is machine-readable, so humans and agents build from the same source.

Built with
React animated slidesFigmaStorybookMarkdown
02 | Speaking & community

On stage & off

talks | teaching
Mærsk Design Days 2025

The agentic operating model

Why the bottleneck is clarity at speed - and how product organizations bend themselves around where AI is clearly heading.

Agentic product model diagram
UX Connect 2025

Vibecoding & MCP protocol

MCP, Google Stitch's beta and n8n were all brand new - a live build showing what "vibecoding" looks like once AI tools start talking to each other.

Vibecoding talk at UX Connect 2025, slide reads AI moves work from Hands to Minds
UX Unite 2024

What the UX Books Don't Teach

Trust, influence and momentum in product organisations - the skills that move UX work forward when you don't control the roadmap.

UX Unite talk slide
UX Copenhagen 2021

Motivational design

Flow theory, intrinsic motivation and gamification that actually retains - lessons from games applied to products and loyalty.

Motivational design talk visual
UX NordicUX ConnectJBoye Conference ×4MærskNorlysUniversal RobotsJyske BankDR
03 | My experience with building with AI

VibeCoding in practice

~/GitHub - 30+ repos

AI makes software cheaper to build. It doesn't make it cheaper to be wrong.

Cost of changes in enterprise software Critical thinking now needs to be pushed upstream ← Before AI After AI Trade off Trade off 3X 3X 10X 100X Cost ofBeing Wrong 6X 1X 1X 100X Cost ofBeing Wrong COST Requirements * Design Development Operation Requirements * Design Development Operation * Business Alignment, Architecture, Design Thinking, UX Research

Going forward, product design has to operate on both the macro and the micro layer - the direction, strategy and judgment, and the craft of how you actually instruct AI to build with proper design: web and app integration, deployment, modern CI/CD, the harness and context engineering that lets AI design and build well. And the fastest way to learn all of it is to start building with AI yourself. +30 GitHub repos later…

My current AI projects

LiveBuildingTool | infraPlanningBlocked
Live

Second Brain (Obsidian)

My personal knowledge system in Obsidian - notes, daily logs and project context wired into one graph, with Claude Code reading and writing the vault over MCP so it stays an active thinking partner, not a graveyard.

ObsidianClaude CodeMCP
Live

Netflix Graphics Production Manager

A personal dashboard for managing high-volume Photoshop title-treatment work - ~700 Netflix titles and growing, each tracked through its production pipeline, with a wall-mounted kiosk view of live status.

Web dashboardPipeline tracking
Planning

AI-Native Kids Content Platform

A kids' media platform where AI analyzes crowd-sourced videos for quality, age fit, pace, safety and learning value - turning unlimited AI content into trusted, categorized playlists.

Video analysisSafety scoringKid-safe curation
Planning

AI Studio

A canvas-based multimodal AI workspace. The next interface is a canvas where you can edit and link every type of media into one large multimodal AI engine.

Next.jstldrawSupabase
Tool

Lego House Website Documentation

A brand & design documentation site - the system, written down and made shared.

Static siteNetlify
Tool

UX Nordic Slides

A React-based talk-deck framework for UX Nordic - slides whose motion is driven by After Effects animations, rendered and synced frame-accurately to each step.

ReactAfter EffectsLottie
Building

Writing Canvas

A node-based infinite canvas for non-linear writing - branch the plot, then reading mode stitches the active path into prose.

React FlowTiptap
Building

Loan Timeline Dashboard

A Danish loan visualiser where you can stack your loans visually on a timeline and see where you'll have highs and lows in your budget - plus AI financial advice on restructuring loans.

Next.jsClaude API
Building

Thonbo Blog & TTS Server

My blog, plus a local GPU pipeline that voices each post in both English and Danish. Switchable across four open rich TTS models. Some through a Docker container because Windows → Linux-only models.

Next.jsFastAPISupabase
Live

Baby Growth Tracker

Tracks a baby's weight and length against WHO growth standards. In daily use at home.

ReactlocalStorage
Live

Tapo Stream Viewer

An Electron desktop app that proxies an H.265 security camera to the browser - with always-on-top PiP and mic talk-back.

ElectronNext.jsffmpeg
Live

D&D Soul Test

A 50-question soul test that scores you into a D&D class, subclass and archetype - built for feel over accuracy.

Next.jsNetlify

Surveyed from ~/Documents/GitHub | nights, weekends, and the occasional 2am rabbit hole. all piloted, none outsourced.

Personal AI stack

I spend €260 a month on AI tools and services.
Out of my own pocket.

Tools & services

ChatGPT PlusClaude Code MaxElevenLabs CreatorRunwayMidjourneyPhotoshopIllustratorAfter Effects3ds MaxV-RayFigmaUnityLottieStorybookGitHubJiraWispr Flow ProObsidianMiroAzureGemini ProNetlify ProSupabase ProTerminalDrones3D printing (FDM+Resin)Embedded prototypingLots of local models on my RTX 4080
04 | The meta

My 3 P's, in exact order

philosophy.md

PeopleProductProcess."85% of success in any job relies on your ability to deal with people." Harvard University / Stanford Research Center, 1918

P1 | Human factors

People

Trust · Mentoring · Culture

Trust building is a key solution to political friction. I display trust through mentorship and detailed feedback, because I care about people's work and time.

P2 | The objective

Product

Human factors · Motivation · Flow

Human-centered design (ISO 9241-210), motivation mechanics and flow. Make the user 'SEE', and they neglect the need for instructions.

P3 | How to get there

Process

Agile · PO · Prioritization

Agile | PO, design sprints and objectively-prioritized backlogs. Frameworks that keep momentum without ever losing taste or judgment.

"Make the user 'SEE', and they will neglect the need for instructions."

Design north star

In times of AI design and development, taste and imagination is king.

On staying curious

"Set a direction and a destination - without them you move in all directions. That's how you learn what not to do."

On AI strategy

"Make the AI 'SEE' and it will neglect the need for instructions."

On context & harness

Trust building

I make the business run - and I make the people running it feel heard.

Good design dies in the gap between what the business needs and what stakeholders believe they want. So before pixels, I map the landscape: who holds influence, who holds interest, who's quietly blocking, and who can become a sponsor.

At Salling Group I acted as head of UX across Bilka, Føtex and Netto - translating commercial direction into an objectively-prioritized backlog so decisions ran on evidence and business value, not gut feeling or politics.

Mostly the job is translation: turning design language into business language and naming the value of a decision without the hot air - humble enough to know when to listen and when to speak.

Stakeholder management isn't diplomacy for its own sake. It's how you keep momentum, protect the user, hit the commercial number - and keep everyone genuinely happy to be on the journey.

05 | Writing & thinking

Thinking out loud

Articles ↗
Authoring

Engine of Intelligence

I'm 120+ pages into a book about what we can learn from the innovation ripples the combustion engine sent through civilisation - and what that comparison might reveal about AI, the new engine whose forthcoming ripples we have barely begun to see.

18 May 2026Make the AI SeeAnd it will neglect the need for instructions.Listen14 May 2026The future of AI vs Human codeThe advantage isn't adopting AI tools - it's the architecture, feedback loops and adaptability to move with the curve.Listen10 May 2026Context engineering and harness engineering are not the same thingSeparating context design from harness mechanics - and why the distinction matters when building with AI.Listen25 Mar 2026Flaws in AI Development Are Mostly a Context IssueMost deficiencies stem from context gaps, not AI limits - the same root cause as misalignment in human teams.Listen22 Mar 2026SaaS is losing its grip - then what?AI makes custom software faster & cheaper than subscriptions - but shipping code isn't shipping a product.Listen05 Mar 2026The real bottleneck is clarity at speedThe harder question isn't which model - it's what operating model we redesign around agentic AI.Listen
06 | Career

26 years of product discovery

1999 → today
Fulltime Employment
NOW– Jan 2023

Trifork

Product Design Lead | Human Factors

Delivered LEGO House's full digital-ecosystem redesign; now focused on AI-led product innovation across sectors - computer vision for industrial automation & sports tech, MCP workflows, and LLM+RAG acceleration.

2023 - 2022

Playable

User Experience Lead

Improving product experience for customers and end users. Mentorship and stakeholder management at the centre of the daily work. (formerly Leadfamly)

2022 - 2021

Knowit

Senior UX Consultant

External UX lead on Arla's cooking, meal-planning and commerce tools - UX, UI & PO. Research, testing and design.

2021 - 2016

Salling Group

UX Manager | Lead

Acting head of UX across Bilka, Føtex & Netto Retail ecommerce and loyalty apps Bilka.dk, Bilka ToGo, Føtex Plus, BR.dk, Wupti, Scan&Go. Digital strategy, research, AI, design direction, design sprints & PO.

2016

Duckwise ApS

Senior UX Designer

LEGO, Bilka, DR Ramasjang - concepts, prototypes and the LEGO Boost robot interface. PO on the LEGO product pipeline.

2015 - 2014

Funday Factory

Senior UX Designer

Designed CodeBot (learning game), TV2 Juleønsket, the DR Ramasjang app and Hama Universe. Owned the sprint backlog.

2014 - 2009

No Zebra

Senior UX Designer | Senior Flash Developer

LEGO, DR, B&O, Arla, Grundfos, BoConcept, Toms - websites, games, motion graphics and animation.

2009 - 2008

Molamil

Lead UX Designer

Coca-Cola Nordics, 3 Mobile, PFA, Alm. Brand, GSK - websites, motion graphics and ad campaigns. (now Manyone)

2008 - 2004

Wunderman Thompson

Senior UX Designer

Changed to

Young & Rubicam

UX Designer

Coca-Cola, Microsoft, 3, DSB, DFDS, Ford - corporate & product sites, games and campaigns. (now VML)

Freelance
NOW– 2020

Netflix

Freelance Design Subcontractor

Seven years as a freelance subcontractor on Netflix design work - a long-running engagement run in parallel with full-time roles.

Freelance · remote

NOW– 2016

Thonbo.com

UX | AI Consultant & Speaker

Consulting and conference speaking throughout - UX Nordic, UX Connect, JBoye (×4), Mærsk, Norlys, Universal Robots, Jyske Bank.

Speaker · Talks

2022

BJ gear

UI & UX Design

Spec heavy configuration engine. Redesigned new layout, filter logic, and sorting.

Freelance · remote

2021

Nordic House of Beds

UI & UX Design

Spec heavy configuration engine. Redesigned new layout, filter logic, and sorting.

Freelance · remote

2016 - 2015

Sculpto ApS

Board member

Kids-first 3D-printer startup - board member plus app & packaging design.

Freelance · remote

2014 - 2015

3D Realms

Freelance UI | Interactions Designer

AAA game : Bombshell (Xbox | PS4 | Steam) - main menu, HUD and popup elements (Scaleform).

Freelance · remote

2004 - 1999

Thonbo.com

Design and Animation

Freelance work for DSB, Acceptcard, Mærsk travel, Gentofte Hospital and more...

Freelance - Fulltime

07 | Capabilities

The spec sheet

years of practice
Digital Interaction Design / UI25 yrs
Agile methodology | PO15 yrs
Animation14 yrs
Programming11 yrs
Public speaking7 yrs
UX Research: Qual | Quant User research, CRO10 yrs
Motion graphics7 yrs
Design Systems : Figma > Storybook > npm6 yrs
3D modelling & rendering5 yrs
Workshop facilitation + Design Sprints7 yrs

Proficiency - nothing is ever 100

Top skills

Design leadershipAgentic EngineeringUI designAI ready Design SystemsUX researchOOPTech stack + integrationsAnimation + Motion graphics
Philip's UX, product and design bookshelf, with hand-labelled UX notebooks from 2004 to 2016.
20 years of UX, product & design — on one shelf.
08 | Let's talk

Let's turn complex AI capability
into usable creative tools.

Email
philip@thonbo.com
Phone
+45 31 24 80 14
LinkedIn
/in/thonbo
Portfolio
thonbo.com
Writing
Articles
Instagram
@thonbo

Other things you will find me doing in my spare time

Instagram - @thonbo

Based just outside Aarhus, Denmark - with my wife (Lead UX at Vestas) and our 3 sons - two of them are also vibing with Claude. Most evenings you'll find us at a board or computer game.

you never get too old to play, but you get old if you stop playing.