Sean Valadão Duarte
Sean Valadão Duarte is a Senior Product & Experience Designer based in Lisboa, specialising in clear, scalable digital products across UX research, strategy and systemised UI. Outside of work, he can usually be found watching Arsenal on the weekends, making ambient tunes in the evenings, and practising his questionable Portuguese whenever he can.
Email
Info
LinkedIn
Work
-
Exceptional ALIEN
-
Venues NSW
- McGrath
- Optimize Mind Performance
- Novii
- Constantinople
- Sportsbet
- Invocare
- Finstro (Coming soon)
- Redback (Coming soon)
- Powershop (Coming soon)
Sportsbet
Role: UX/UI Designer
Industry: Sports gambling
Time: 6 weeks
Delivered: App product strategy
Bringing personalisation, relevance and education to Sportbet’s offerings to boost punter engagement, confidence and excitement.
Overview
Sportsbet, owned by Flutter Entertainment, is a leading online gambling platform in Australia. Through its app, it offers customers extensive digital access to betting, delivering over a billion dollars annually in value-driven incentives such as boosted odds, money-back offers, and personalised promotions.
Task
Redefine what value means for Sportsbet’s core user base. Develop north star solutions that uncover new ways for users to discover and engage with value-driven offerings.
Business benefit
- Improved customer perception of generosity and brand, SOW.
-
Define a central branded access point to refer to in comms and marketing of where to go to receive generosity.
Customer benefit
- Better comprehension of generosity available
-
Less likely to miss a promo
-
Personalisation
Problem
Despite multiple iterations to the Generosity strategy, these changes have not shifted customer perception of value. Value continues to be narrowly understood through the lens of price and promotions, indicating that adjustments to incentives alone are insufficient to meaningfully influence how customers perceive Sportsbet’s overall offering.
Approach
Qualitative first-discovery
Our qualitative insights revealed that punters lacked clarity around Sportsbet’s generosity. They didn’t understand what was being offered, when or where it applied, or why it was context-dependent.
This pointed to a clear need for greater transparency, simpler language, visual communication and personalised relevance. Here are a collection of quotes that summarised their issue and confusion with ‘value’ in the Sportsbet app.
-
“I often forget to use all the generosity available to me.”
- “I’m a loyal customer and expect rewards and recognition for choosing Sportsbet over other bookies.”
- “I don’t understand all the generosity I have and I don’t always know where to find it, which can be frustrating.”
- “I don’t understand the difference between the generosity and don’t understand what they are by icon alone.”
- “I don’t understand why my friends get different generosity to me.”
- “I often get tokens that I’m not interested in using.”
Approach
Analysing the marketThe competitive analysis revealed clear opportunities for Sportsbet to elevate its generosity. Despite its leadership in the gambling space, there was room to differentiate through bespoke value products and tailored generosity packages, opening new pathways for brand elevation and user engagement.
Education
Simple explanations and toolkits to educate users on application via offer hubs.
Clean UI
Clear visual communication and design to differentiate action types and improve memorability.
Clearer hierarchies
Optimised hierarchies and placement at relevant points within the betting flow, specifically within betting containers and the bet slip.
Value hubsA dedicated Value Hub enabling users to easily assess what’s available to them and where it could be applied.
Nudging the userContextual prompts reminding users of value they can apply to increase value engagement.
Approach
Betting mindsetsOur research revealed distinct betting mindsets that helped frame how value should be redefined.
The frequency and intent of punters highlighted a clear need to rethink how generosity was communicated and delivered. Most users lacked awareness of what value was available, when it applied or how to access it. These insights informed the development of our personas, which in turn guided ideation. Themes such as education, simplicity and personalisation became central to addressing engagement, improving understanding and increasing the effective use of value across the Sportsbet betting experience.
Approach
A focused lauchpadOur ideation focused on seamlessly integrating value into the betting journey, ensuring it was easy to understand, discover and apply at any moment a user was searching for or placing a bet.
How might we make Sportsbet’s offers more understandable, relevant and effortless to use, while adding excitement at key betting moments?
Solution
Value overhaul
At this stage, the solution was not a single, fixed product, but a deliberate tightening of flows and features selected for validation and testing.
These were guided by a clear strategic principle: placing value at the forefront of the betting experience and supporting it with educational and personalised moments that explained not only what users had, but why they had it.
Research showed that users struggled to understand how to access value, or why others received different offers. Addressing this required a more systematic, transparent approach, one that streamlined the experience, improved clarity and reduced cognitive effort. At the same time, the solution needed to reward ongoing loyalty while remaining sensitive to regulatory and ethical obligations around problem gambling.
Rather than positioning generosity as gated or opaque, the strategy reframed value as a visible, core part of the experience. By simplifying how generosity was communicated and applied, Sportsbet could differentiate itself locally and globally through clarity, trust and purposeful delivery of value, something Sportsbet and it’s competitors were at fault for not providing.
Purposeful onboarding
- Onboarding was repositioned as an educational moment at the very start of the experience, introducing users to what value meant, and how different value offers could be applied to improve their betting odds.
- Users were able to “bet their way” by selecting the sports they preferred to wager on, aligning with an established behaviour observed in the majority of bettors (around 85%).
-
This flow also provided a natural entry point to surface and explain new value products, such as pack drops, which were tailored to the sports users chose to prioritise during their betting experience.
Offers hub
- The Offers Hub represented a significant upgrade on Sportsbet’s existing value index. Rather than presenting a limited, context-dependent list of offers, it consolidated all available value into a single, transparent space. Users could clearly see how many offers they had across each type (such as Power Plays or Bet Returns), what value packs were available by sport or occasion, and which games or events were currently offering added value.
Beyond visibility, the hub acted as a launch point for discovery and application, allowing users to find, understand and apply offers seamlessly as they moved through their betting journey.
Education & clarity
- Within the Offers Hub, users could learn what each offer provided and how it worked, supported by short video tutorials that clearly explained both usage and benefit. The hub also enabled users to filter and tailor their discovery, allowing them to focus on the offers they valued most. This not only reduced friction but optimised the betting experience around individual engagement patterns and value preferences.
Pack drops
- Pack Drops were introduced as a new way to excite and delight users, all framed through the lens of value. Offered at key moments throughout the year, such as the super bowl or melbourne cup, they bundled relevant offers into a single, easy-to-understand experience.
This created both an educational and habitual way to engage with value, giving users meaningful boosts on the events they cared most about. By aligning packs to shared moments and cultural occasions, Pack Drops encouraged better returns while reinforcing value as something to be anticipated, understood and enjoyed.
Offers tray & bet slip
- The bet slip emerged as a key point of confusion during testing, particularly for users who were unsure whether value had been applied to their bet. To address this, a clear and consistent value flow was integrated directly into the bet slip. Users could always see a dedicated value dropdown, clearly indicating what offers were available and applicable from their own account.
A streamlined quick-slip view then confirmed both the selected bet and any value applied to the outcome. Largely driven by improvements in UI, language and hierarchy, this optimisation reduced uncertainty while giving users greater confidence and control when placing bets.
Tips & reminders
- After a bet was settled, if an available offer hadn’t been used, Pro Tips were surfaced post-outcome to educate users on how the result could have differed. Even in cases where no return was earned, this created a constructive learning moment, helping users understand the role of value and how it could be applied next time. By linking outcomes to opportunity, Pro Tips encouraged continued engagement with value without interrupting the live betting experience.
Testing
An inspired response
After finalising and approving solutions with Sportsbet, we conducted concept testing with our original audience to evaluate the new functionalities and value products. Users were excited about the potential integration and even inquired about the timeline for implementation.
Sports Packs
Generally, users were delighted with the idea of having sports-centric offers that aligned to their interests.
Personalisation
Users generally thought this would help funnel their interests and allow them to seamlessly bet.
Dedicated Generosity Hub
Like the education during onboarding, users saw this as a must to imbue better offer understanding.
Points & RewardsUsers were overall negative towards this solution, citing ethical concerns regarding addiction.
Offers Tray
One of the favourites of the solutions, this resonated with users as it meant they knew when to add an offer.
Offers Dropdowns
Users loved that they could now add any offer to any bet (if they had said offer available).
Outcome Education
Beneficial, but not integral to the betting flow or the education of offers.
Outcome
Final recommendation
Our final recommendation optimised Sportsbet's generosity, prioritising punters' core needs for understanding, education, transparency and ease of use, aligned with Sportsbet's business objectives.
While the solution performed well with seasoned punters and inspired the team, broader questions remained. Value itself needed restructuring to support our proposed solution, shifting from gated, infrequent use to holistic access. This became a key business decision for Sportsbet moving forward and was seen as a key strategic decision to be made internally moving forward.
Team
Head of Product - Russel Privett
Lead UX Designer - Raine
UX/UI Designer - Sean Valadão Duarte
Senior Strategist - Darren Low
Head of Strategy - Alex VitlinTasks
Discovery
Ideation
Strategy
Indicative UI Design
Concept testing
Prototyping