Madalina Raicu
UX Engineering Specialist
HCI, University of Manchester · EthCC: cognitive biases and heuristics in DeFi
Read bioAbout us
Specialist UX, AI and commercial expertise for teams building products people trust.
Ray Group is a UK-based group of five specialist agencies. We help product teams design, build and ship software grounded in how people think, feel and decide - from psychology-informed UX audits and MCP servers to branding and business tools.
Our agencies
What we do
We turn five specialisms into focused services, products and courses. Each agency owns one practice, so you work with specialists, and briefs that span disciplines can combine several agencies.
UX
Psychology-informed UX for teams building complex products - from focused reviews to ongoing, agent-assisted support.
Services, products and courses
View agency →AI
Practical AI infrastructure for product and engineering teams - from agent setup and repository workflows to custom MCP servers.
Services, products and courses
- Design + Implementation
- AI & Agentic Development
- Custom MCP Server
- Agent Setup Kit
- Agentic Development Setup Kit
- Software Engineer to Architect
- Software Engineer to AI Engineer
Branding
Practical brand direction and tools that turn one strong idea into a coherent visual system - from colour and covers to fashion lookbooks and launch-ready imagery.
Services, products and courses
View agency →Commercial
Straightforward tools for the numbers and pipelines behind the work - currency conversion, costs, profit, wealth monitoring, and a real estate agent CRM.
Services, products and courses
- Design + Implementation
- Money converter tool
- Product profit calculator
- Wealth monitor
- Real estate agent CRM
Trading & DeFi UX
Specialist UX for trading and financial products - audits, MCP guidance, interface kits, and clear risk disclosure for informed decisions.
Services, products and courses
- Design + Implementation
- Trading UX Audit
- DeFi UX MCP
- Trading UI Kit
- Onboarding Kit
- Risk Disclosure Components
- Trading UX Course
- Day Trading Course
Why us
What makes us different
Most UX agencies stop at screens, and most AI consultancies skip the human. We do both, and we write down the method so it can be repeated.
Grounded in cognitive psychology and HCI
Recommendations come from Human-Computer Interaction research and named cognitive biases - anchoring, loss aversion, overconfidence - not taste. Every finding points to an observable behaviour and a named pattern that fixes it.
Expertise encoded as MCP tools
Our DeFi UX rubric, pattern library and cognitive-bias glossary ship as an MCP server, so AI agents in Cursor, Claude and CI can apply the same human-centred judgement our team does.
Design and engineering in one team
We research, prioritise, design, engineer and deploy. You can hire us for the whole arc or just one part, without a hand-off between a design agency and a dev shop.
Built by people from finance and Web3
The team has worked on BlackRock's Aladdin platform, DeFi engineering at Wintermute, and Google. We understand regulated, high-stakes products where a confusing interface costs real money.
Specialist agencies, one group
Five agencies - UX, AI, Branding, Commercial, and Trading & DeFi UX - each with a clear scope. Pick the one that fits, or combine them for broader briefs.
Clients
Who we work with
Teams where users have to understand, decide and act - often with money on the line.
Trading, DeFi and FinTech teams
Exchanges, perpetuals protocols, wallets and brokers that need clearer risk disclosure, safer defaults and better first transactions.
Product and design teams
Teams building complex B2B, insurance or consumer products who want evidence-backed UX reviews or an ongoing UX retainer.
Engineering teams adopting AI
Teams setting up agentic development - Cursor and Claude workflows, custom MCP servers, and agent-assisted code and UX review.
Founders and small businesses
Founders who need brand direction, launch imagery, or simple tools for costs, profit, currency conversion and client pipelines.
Designers, engineers and traders
Individuals levelling up through our self-paced courses in trading UX, visual design, software architecture, AI engineering and day trading.
Clients and previous collaborators include LANTERN, Direct Line, Churchill, OSTIUM, VEGA, ExchangeART and Chainlink Labs.
Clients & previous collaborators
Private Equity & Insurance
LANTERN
Direct Line
Churchill
Web 3
OSTIUM
VEGA
ExchangeART
Chainlink Labs
Team
The team leading the group
We're led by practitioners across engineering, design and research. Engagements are led, and delivered, by the people you meet.
Ana Raicu
Operations & Strategy Director
Computer Science, Imperial College London · DeFi engineering, Wintermute
Process
How we work
A short, predictable path from first message to shipped work.
01
Pick an agency or product
Start with the agency that matches your brief, buy a product or course directly, or simply send us a message.
02
Book a 30-minute call
A free online meeting to understand your users, your product and what success looks like. We reply to messages within two working days.
03
Agree a focused scope
We propose a clear engagement - an audit, a build, a workshop or a retainer - with deliverables and timelines agreed up front.
04
Research, design and build
We work in your tools and repositories, scoring screens against our rubric, designing named patterns and shipping working software.
05
Hand over and keep improving
You keep the findings, components, MCP tools and documentation. Ongoing support is available through retainers.