Matthew Riches | Designer
Portfolio of Matthew Riches, a designer specialising in future technologies, innovation, AI, Apple products, video games, accessibility and sci-fi.
Hello. I specialise in design with a skew towards future
technologies.
I have a long and varied career in design, which has afforded me the skills to operate in all disciplines thereof. I have created start-ups, worked at a trillion dollar corporations
and everything in between; currently designing and researching the unimaginable.
Est. 1983
Showreel of Apple projects I contributed towards.
The greatest feeling for me is designing a product that is meaningful in someone's life and makes a positive impact, which is what I strive towards every day.
I'm a listener and ally and like to spend my spare time supporting others, exploring the future and going on adventures with my family.
Experience
Huawei R&D
2025 — Present
Leading an innovation laboratory focused on the far-future of consumer technology.
A Team of Superstars
I will always remember my interview at Huawei. By chance, the HMI
director from the Chinese headquarters was visiting that day, so I moved from interview to interview in quick succession and was hired only a few hours after
arriving.
Huawei hired me from Apple with a very specific brief: to help create a new laboratory focused on innovation for the five-year
horizon and beyond. The ambition was clear. Huawei did not want to simply follow the direction of the industry, but to define more of its own path in consumer
innovation.
I was given the opportunity to build the team myself, bringing together an all-star group of people with the freedom to pursue difficult ideas that might
otherwise never get explored. So I packed my bags, moved from just outside Cambridge to London, and took on what felt like a once-in-a-career challenge.
What made the
role especially unusual was that I was actively encouraged to be a disruptor. I was asked to challenge long-held assumptions inside the company
and help show new ways of working, thinking and innovating.
Since 2025, the lab has operated with a Skunk Works mindset, growing to a team of eight and delivering a
number of meaningful successes along the way.
Apple Inc.
2015 — 2025
Ten years across seven teams, designing products and experiences that touch millions of lives daily.
Intelligence & Foundation Models
Towards the end of my decade at Apple, I was placed in an
incubator lab and paired with two AI/ML scientists: one fascinated by historical culture, who later went on to join OpenAI, and one with a deep love of algorithms and robotics.
Together, we were asked to explore what AI could mean for Apple, and more importantly, which real human problems it could genuinely help solve. From the beginning, I pushed for
us to start with psychology rather than technology, and with biology rather than novelty.
One of the concepts that came from this was Digital Psyche, our attempt to
build a system that could better understand human emotion and the meaning behind what people were really saying. It was an architecture designed not just to process words, but
to interpret intent between the lines and use a more human model to condition responses. Two moments from that work have stayed with me. In one, when tested against coded
language used to signal danger in difficult situations, our system outperformed other AI models of the time despite being only a fraction of their size. In another, during
internal testing with patient dialogue, the system produced responses that felt remarkably close to those of a real therapist. That was never its intended use, but it was a
powerful signal that treating emotion as part of intent, rather than something separate from it, led to a much deeper understanding of the user.
We also developed
Digital Body Language, a concept that allowed AI to express its confidence through colour, motion and form. The idea was to make the system’s internal state more legible to
people, so that interaction felt more intuitive and more trustworthy. This thinking later informed the newer Siri visual style, where colour
appears around the edge of the screen, making Siri feel less like a floating layer placed on top of the interface and more like part of the operating system itself.
Alongside
this, we explored a number of other ideas, including using psychological frameworks to shape the personalities of characters, and mixture-of-experts approaches to condition
outputs for different contexts such as video production and image creation.
App Intents
I was at Apple while SiriKit was being developed, and saw
first-hand both the ambition behind it and the challenges it faced in practice. It was a thoughtful attempt to give third-party developers a safe and consistent way to connect
their apps to Siri, while still keeping Siri as the authoritative gatekeeper to the experience.
The problem was that the system was too constrained. Its flexibility
was limited, the range of supported use cases was narrow, and as a result adoption and developer satisfaction never reached the level Apple had hoped for. It became clear that
a new approach was needed.
Working alongside an exceptional engineer (who later went on to join Meta before returning to Apple to focus on XR), we jointly designed a framework intended to solve that problem properly: something with effectively unlimited extensibility, built to support
an AI-powered future, but simple enough for third-party developers to use with minimal friction.
Internally, the project was known as Link, while marketing later introduced it as App Intents.The framework allowed developers to expose functionality to Siri by annotating existing code, rather than
building entirely separate integrations from scratch. It was supported directly within Xcode as well, with tools for testing against Siri, defining custom entities, and
handling localisation more easily.
The result was broad adoption, but more importantly it laid the groundwork for a future in which increasingly capable models could
make use of the wider Apple ecosystem in a way that was both practical for developers and genuinely useful for users.
Apple Vision & visionOS
The earliest prototypes for what would eventually become Apple
Vision started not long after I joined in 2015. At that stage, the hardware was remarkably raw: metal parts held together with screws and rubber bands, fashioned into a headset
that felt closer to a lab experiment than a product. It projected imagery directly onto the back of the eye using lasers, and the result was completely unearthly. Seeing a HUD
appear in your vision felt less like consumer technology and more like stepping into the cockpit of a science-fiction fighter. I also discovered, somewhat unhelpfully, that I
blink more than the average person, which made me an unexpectedly disruptive participant in some of those early tests.
As the programme matured, my background in video
games and digital design became increasingly relevant. I worked on concepts and prototypes for the interface layers of Apple Vision, as well as
augmented controls designed to exist natively within mixed reality. It was a fascinating design space, one that required thinking beyond screens and towards experiences that
blended sight, sound and interaction into something that felt as though it sat between realities.
Later in the product cycle, my long-standing interest in 3D
modelling, particularly of science-fiction forms, became unexpectedly useful again. I was asked to contribute concepts for the overall industrial design of Apple Vision Pro,
and a number of the cues I explored were carried through into the final product.
Safety & Health Features
When I joined Apple's conversational interaction team, a
US-based group responsible for defining how Siri acts, reacts and communicates, I was asked to audit how well the system handled emergency, safety and other highly sensitive
situations.
As someone coming from outside the US, I was able to bring a different perspective to the work, and it quickly exposed issues that had not been fully
considered. That ranged from non-emergency services such as NHS 111, to transport-specific support lines, Coast Guard access, and specialist numbers for areas such as fraud
assistance. I compared Siri’s responses against real transcripts from the opening moments of emergency calls, and studied the way people actually speak when they need urgent
help. It was painstaking work, but it made visible the dangerous gaps between how a system was expected to behave and how people really behaved under pressure.
The
outcome was a comprehensive report detailing what needed to change, how it should change, and in what order. One of the most striking examples involved users attempting to
contact the Coast Guard through Siri, only to be directed instead to a restaurant of the same name in Los Angeles. Seeing that fixed remains one of my proudest moments at
Apple. A month later, hearing Tim Cook speak on stage about how that exact capability had helped save the lives of fishermen off the coast of
Mexico was a powerful reminder that the smallest details in interface design can carry enormous human weight.
My second proudest moment came from something deeply
personal. My grandfather lived in a retirement home, the kind equipped with an emergency pull cord beside the bed. One morning he fell, broke his hip, and was unable to move
far enough to call for help. He lay there for hours until a nurse found him during a routine check. He was taken to hospital, but later died from an infection caused by the
injury.
At the time, I was working inside Apple and felt there had to be a better answer than a pull cord fixed to a wall, or an emergency pendant that many people
would never willingly wear. I began concepting the idea of Apple Watch detecting a fall automatically, notifying loved ones, and contacting
emergency services when necessary. That feature later became real. From there, I also worked with the safety team on further ideas in the same space, including drowning
detection, car crash detection, hearing protection, and blood oxygen monitoring and preventative features such as Downtime and Screentime.
It is still bittersweet to
hear how these features have gone on to help save lives, knowing they arrived too late for my grandfather. But that experience is also why this work has always mattered to me
at a much deeper level.
Accessibility
Accessibility has always been something I have cared about. Part of
that is personal, if I am honest. I have always had a fear of losing my own senses. But beyond that, I have long believed that accessible design is often simply better design: when you
solve properly for inclusion, the benefits usually extend far beyond the people you first set out to help.
Although accessibility was a thread running throughout my time at
Apple, the most significant chapter came when I was paired with a blind employee to focus deeply on issues affecting people with visual impairments. Together, we audited every
first-party app and large parts of the operating system, filing Radars against the relevant teams for every issue we found. The scale of the work was enormous, resulting in tens of
thousands of reports, many of which I am told are still being worked through today.
That experience changed how I design. It not only made me highly proficient with tools such
as VoiceOver, but also gave me a much sharper understanding of where accessibility succeeded, where it broke down, and where the underlying design assumptions were simply wrong. A
great deal of that came from both hands-on use and from observing how my colleague navigated the system in practice.
Together, we went on to concept improvements to VoiceOver,
as well as a new way of operating devices in situations where VoiceOver was not enough. That thinking created Voice Control, an accessibility feature
designed to let people control even inaccessible content through voice commands and gesture-based interaction. It also led us to propose further ideas for Siri Shortcuts, with the aim
of creating faster, more flexible routes into accessibility features when they were needed most. This contribution was what later saw me created App Intents.
Official Apple demonstration video of Voice Control on iOS.
HomePod
The HomePod was one of the first industrial design projects
I contributed to at Apple. I still remember the earliest concepts clearly: at one stage it looked a little like a white marshmallow, charming in its own way, but not especially
practical.
Before joining Apple, I had worked with Sony on the light language of the DualShock 4 controller for PlayStation, shaping how light could feel alive through
breathing patterns while charging, signals during gameplay, and system-level indications. When I joined the HomePod project, I was keen to bring some of that same thinking into
the product.
Although the final industrial design did not lend itself to eye-level light communication, the underlying principles still found a place in the
experience, ultimately expressed through the light behaviour on the HomePod’s top surface.
MacBook Pro
I first met Sir Jony Ive in Apple's Cambridge office back in
2016. He was already a Sir by then, but was in Cambridge to receive an honrary degree from the Cambridge University.
When his chauffeur appeared in a very long, very
shiny Rolls-Royce outside the office on Hills Road, an arterial road to the centre, but a single carriageway nonetheless, it turned heads. By the time he left an hour later,
traffic was crawling. His chauffeur was unfazed, happy to pass the time with a newspaper.
Sir Jony Ive wore a baby-blue suit that day, with a silk shirt and bright
orange socks. One of his favourite colours, you'll often see him carrying a notebook in a similiar shade. It was, of course, known internally long before it became public
that Jony Ive would be leaving Apple. His design philosophy had long centred on creating products that were as thin, light and minimal as possible. With his departure came
an opportunity to rethink that direction and develop a revised industrial design language, one that responded more directly to the serious
demands professional users placed on their hardware, while still carrying echoes of classic Apple design.
Although Apple Silicon produced less heat than the Intel
chips before it, I pushed the MacBook Pro in a different direction: towards seriousness. That meant allowing more space where it mattered, restoring essential inputs, removing
novelty for novelty's sake, such as the Touch Bar, and increasing durability. The goal was to make the product feel dependable, capable and unapologetically
professional.
When the first Apple Silicon MacBook Pro launched, the response was overwhelmingly positive and the new direction was widely praised. I still have a
slightly wry smile whenever I see that design, especially as I continue to use it every day myself.
Apple Watch Ultra
The more durable design direction of the MacBook naturally
extended into Apple Watch Ultra, a new watch category created for endurance, exploration and more extreme conditions. It was not simply about making the watch tougher, but
about creating a product whose form immediately communicated capability, reliability and purpose.
Many of the styling cues explored on
the Mac were deliberately amplified for the Ultra. Edges became more pronounced, surfaces felt more protective, and the overall character moved away from refinement alone
towards something more overtly functional. The aim was to give the watch an almost industrial quality, one that made it feel built for harsh environments rather than adapted to
them as an afterthought.
What I found especially satisfying was that the design did not rely on marketing language to explain itself. You could understand what the
product was for simply by looking at it. It felt robust, deliberate and highly legible, with each choice helping signal that this was a tool made for endurance and serious use.
TextSpaced
Personal Project
TextSpaced trailer I created exploring story elements.
TextSpaced was a sci-fi MMORPG I created, though it began life in a
much humbler form. The first version was a simple command-line game I built largely just to pass the time. It ran on a 3x3 grid and dropped the player into a random arena with random
weapons and a single AI ship to fight. Even in that crude prototype, many of the ideas that later defined TextSpaced were already present: changing stance and range, strange environmental
rules, and unexpected encounters. You might find alien civilisations on planets that would either join you or turn against you, or black holes that stopped kinetic weapons from firing. It
was basic, but it established the foundations.
The project really found its momentum on Facebook Messenger. At the time, my friends and I were spending a lot of time in Rainbow
Six Siege, but because ranked matchmaking could take up to fifteen minutes between games, I built something to fill the wait. That first Messenger version was a competitive team game with
two sides, each made up of three captains and an admiral, fighting across a 20x10 grid to destroy the other side’s homeworld. It also introduced mining and resource gathering, so the
admiral could unlock new technologies while the captains fought. It was never intended to scale, but when I released it over a single weekend, around 15,000 people tried to play it and it
promptly fell apart.
That failure was the signal. It showed me there was real demand for something like this, so I rebuilt it from the ground up as a text-based MMO on Messenger,
this time designed for much greater scale and scope, with the original players becoming my first testers.
Soon after launch, a blind player contacted me to say they loved the
game, but that with a number of changes it could become dramatically more accessible. That message had a huge impact on me. From that point on, accessibility became a core part of the
project and, in many ways, the thing that gave it its true identity. It eventually found a strong niche with blind and partially sighted players, and at its peak reached 50,000 concurrent users.
Over
time, TextSpaced grew into a large browser-based universe of factions, trade, fabrication, exploration and conflict, all built around player freedom. Although it has now closed, it remains
one of the projects I am proudest of, not just because of its scale, but because it proved to me that accessibility and ambition are not opposing forces. In many ways, the game worked
because of its constraints, not despite them.
Earlier Career
VocalIQ
2015
UI/UX design and front-end development for conversational AI platform, later acquired by Apple.
KarmApp
2014 — 2015
Created a mobile application for logging and exploring karma worldwide. It became very popular in Indian markets.
IGN Entertainment
2011 — 2015
Having been a supporting writer for years, I became a ghost writer to back-fill reviews - ultimately writing just over 20,000 reviews.
The District Limited
2014 — 2015
My role at The District in Cambridge was to be the Head of Digital, managing full-stack development and client support for web and digital projects. Focusing mostly on experimental and innovative design. I was lucky enough to work with some amazing clients such as Cambridge University creating a site where Sir David Attenborough was the patron to Design Bridge, Zara and the NHS.
No Fuss Reviews
2008 — 2015
Founded a gaming review network, raising money for charities, with the simple premise of giving quick bite-sized reviews with no fuss. The network expanded into OpenSearch, browser plugins and SMS and was purchased by a competitor.
DICE (EA)
2013 — 2014
Freelance concept artist for Battlefield franchise to provide an external perspective, I was called back after my successful prior project with EA.
BBC
2014
UX consultant for BBC iPlayer and digital platforms, with the aim to rebrand and build a new design language for the iPlayer - yes, I was the one that pushed the pink.
Sony PlayStation (SCEA)
2013 — 2014
As a freelance designer for new PlayStation Blog worldwide, I
was tasked with creating a new, fresh feel for the official blog that moved in step with the PlayStation operating system interface updates.
A new design language and
design system was required which focused on the "squares" style, while supporting the overall direction of blended discovery and exploration.
Transversal
2013 — 2014
Web developer for machine-learning based help sites for large brands, including for RAC, Majestic Wine, BBC and Barclays.
Electronic Arts
2013
Freelance concept artist, providing alternative visions for future franchises and games.
Sony PlayStation (SCEE)
2012
UX consultant for DualShock 4, mainly focusing on the light language - as well as other PlayStation Europe projects.
Suffolk New College
2009 — 2011
E-Learning Developer implementing Blackboard VLE campus-wide, supporting teaching staff and generally pushing forward technology usage through the university and college. The initatives I started increased student engagement, reduced teaching administration time and the college became the first in the UK to use QR code based attendance and learning handouts.
Games, Gadgets and Gizmos
2010 — 2011
Editor-in-chief for an online magazine I founded, providing editorial content in technology and gaming.
Find Me My Menu
2009 — 2011
Founded a UK takeaway platform with AR app for finding and
getting food delivered by local takeaways.
The core of the software was an SQL stored procedure that would translate a UK postcode to coordinates and preferences as
parameters, resulting in a responsive and simple to maintain excution layer. I am told that the procedure is still used today. It was acquired by Just Eat.
Midstream Media
2010
UX consultant for custom video delivery platform.
ITV
2010
Design consultant for ITV website redesign.
Moneysupermarket.com
2010
Design consultant working with in-house team on site redesign.
AV Unit
2007 — 2009
Senior web designer leading design and development for client sites and e-commerce platforms. Most notable creating the original On The Beach website.
PlayStation EU Blog
2008
Assistant editor for unofficial PlayStation Blog for Europe. Shut down when the official blog launched.
TextSpaced
2008
The beginnings of TextSpaced as a terminal game.
Computer Inactive
2007 — 2008
Computer Inactive, trading as Computer F6, was a company I
founded with three other people. It was a subscription based troubleshooting platform, using heuristics to identify and provide solutions to software, hardware, connectivity and
internet issues. The software was entirely created by me and packaged as a website.
We gained traction by bundling the service with computer sales by other vendors and
attending computer fairs. It was acquired by Microsoft and rebranded as "Fix It".
AXA Insurance
2005 — 2007
Intranet development for AXA UK, utilising a custom CMS platform.
Microsoft Game Studios
2002
Junior games tester working part-time on quality assurance, most notable for the PC game Freelancer.
Raven Eye Computer Systems
2000 — 2003
Founded company specialising in high-end small footprint computers. Acquired by local vendor.
Side Quests
Long Shadow is a science-fiction and dark-fantasy narrative universe that spans millennia. It follows different characters across distant eras, each shaped by the weight of time, the consequences of choices made long before them, and the circumstances they inherit.
A game I helped fund as I found the premise adorable - a cute top down racing game with a tactile arcade physics model, pitstops, and a pure motorsport approach.
A game I helped fund, centered on a compelling gameplay loop of mining and upgrading.
Apple Watch Ultra promotional video I created, unreleased.
Fondest Memories
The moments that made it all worthwhile
Knowing the Work Saved Lives
Fall detection started as a concept — a quiet idea that technology should notice when a person can't speak for themselves. Concepting and designing safety features at Apple that went on to reach millions of people is something I carry with me every day. Somewhere out there, someone is alive because a watch noticed they fell, their heart beat is irregular or they were involved in a car crash. That will never stop meaning something to me.
A Ship, Printed in Three Dimensions
Unexpectedly I received a video from a blind player of TextSpaced. As an annual reward, he had asked for his favourite ship from the game (a mining Barge) be 3D printed. His mother filmed him opening the package and running his fingers across its hull for the first time — feeling the form of something that had only ever existed as text on a screen. It is the single most profound piece of feedback I have ever received for anything I have made and it had no words.
Helping a Student Find His Place
While working at Suffolk New College I supported a student to start a game review blog as part of his course. He was bright but unsure of himself because of a learning disability. I connected him with professionals in the games industry, opened a few doors, and watched from a distance as he walked through them. He landed his dream job. Moments like that remind me that being nice is the best thing to be.
Testimonials
Via LinkedIn ↗Matthew is an amazing designer, always bringing new concept and ideas, always challenging the status quo and approaching things from new perspectives. His designs always express a lot of empathy and inclusivity for users. In addition to creating stunning visual designs, Matthew can also code: over the last few years, he has built amazing prototypes harnessing the power of generative AI for text, photo or video. I highly recommend Matthew to any team, company who wants to start building a strong innovation pipeline.
Guillaume Privat
Apple
October 2024
I had the pleasure of working with Matthew for several years, and he is one of the most talented designers I've ever met. His exceptional design skills, combined with his curiosity and versatility, set him apart. I highly recommend him to anyone seeking a top-tier designer who can drive innovation and success in any project.
Silvia Frías
Apple
October 2024
I have had the privilege of witnessing Matthew's design work first hand. Matthew has impressed me many times with his design talent and skillset which he demonstrated in developing PoCs for AI-based products, as well as while dramatically improving the UI of top tier tools for developers.
Mariana Raj
Apple
October 2023
Matthew is a fantastic designer who is also very capable in user research, which is a very valuable combination. He is a pleasure to work with and I highly recommend him for product design and user research roles.
Juha Seppä
Apple
September 2023
I had the pleasure of collaborating with Matthew on several projects both at VocalIQ and Apple, and I can wholeheartedly recommend him as an exceptional product designer. Matthew possesses a remarkable ability to transform complex ideas into user-friendly and visually stunning designs. On top of that, he has the ability to take his own designs into working prototypes thanks to his software development skills. I've thoroughly enjoyed our discussions about technical and product issues. Matthew brings a unique, user-centric perspective that has led to solutions I hadn't initially considered.
Marco Dinacci
Apple
September 2023
Matthew is a talented web developer (among other things!) who is efficient, precise, and has phenomenal communication skills which make working with him a pleasure. He always completed projects and solved issues much more quickly than I'd expect, and no request was brushed aside or ignored. His websites include creative features that go beyond the norm. On a more general note, Matthew is an inspiration. He works hard and puts 100% into everything that he turns his hand to be it development, reviews or art.
Stacey Armour
Transversal
March 2014
Matthew is a highly creative and innovative developer/designer. His ethic for hard work allows him to complete projects quickly and accurately, whilst his calm and collected personality means he is never flustered when faced with several tasks at once. He also shows a high level of entrepreneurial spirit in both personal and professional projects.
Martyn Riley
Suffolk New College
February 2014
Matthew is a brilliant IT professional who enabled me to produce some excellent tools for staff and students. He is helpful, intelligent and full of good ideas and suggestions. He can explain difficult concepts with ease and is a great team player. His website design and technical expertise is second to none. I can recommend Matthew most highly and know that his professional standards and competence will be an asset to anyone he works with.
Sarah Adams
Suffolk New College
November 2011
Within a couple of years Matthew took our VLE and developed it to a level that I would have expected after 5 years. An exceptionally talented web developer!
Steven Inglis
Suffolk New College
November 2011
Matthew is everything I have come to expect from a web developer. He is always able to present the college's ideas in a simple but eye catching way and is constantly finding alternative and better ways to publicise the college. In addition to his skills as a web developer Matthew has an extraordinary ability to pick up new skills and apply them competently to areas outside his remit. He is dedicated, punctual and hard working and a great team player.
Oliver Reynolds
Suffolk New College
January 2011