Resume
Experience
UX Research Lead
JUN 2021 - PRESENT
Aegon UK
Edinburgh, UK
I moved into this role to take on leading and developing Aegon's UX research capability. My main role is to manage the UX research team, mentor junior team members, Run the research team operations, run UX research myself and develop the practice.
In 18 months I developed and built the UX research practice from an initial team of one, working on one project at a time to a team of 5, supporting up to 14 different agile teams at once. To do this I had to educate the company and key stakeholders on the value of research and continue to deliver valuable research to help shape projects.
Design Lead
MAR 2021 - DEC 2021
Protect Our Winters (POW)
Volunteer, Remote
Protect Our Winters is an environmental charity set up to help encourage businesses and individuals to reduce their impact on the environment. Supporting a team of volunteers who were aspiring UX Designers and Researchers I helped the charity deliver an improved design for its POW pledge tool and their website. In my free time, I ran education sessions, conducted 1:1 mentoring, design reviews and project planning with the team to keep them on track and develop their skills. The new design my team produced led to an increase in the number of companies taking the POW pledge and the volunteers were able to use the experience to help them get jobs in UX Design and Research.
Senior UX Designer
AUG 2019 - Jun 2021
Aegon UK
Edinburgh, UK
I worked in cross-functional teams of developers, testers and stakeholders to deliver new or enhancements to Aegon digital products and services. I organised and analysed data from live sites, ran user interviews with Aegon customers to gather qualitative feedback and ran design ideation workshops with stakeholders. I was also responsible for overseeing the UX and CX change being delivered by third party supplier which included running accessibility audits.
UX Researcher & Designer
AUG 2019 - JUN 2021
PA Consulting
London, UK
I worked for a wide range of companies including government departments, well-known high street retailers, and financial institutions. Whilst working for these companies I conducted user research to identify new opportunities, understand their customers and how their customers interacted with their service or products. My experience of working in fast-paced agile environments combined with my technical knowledge helped me to communicate my findings with development teams.
Education
MEng Product Design Engineering
DEGREE LEVEL (2:1)
University of Glasgow & Glasgow School of Art
The Masters in Product Design Engineering, taught in collaboration with the School of Design, Glasgow School of Art developed my ability to design products with significant engineering content, address user needs, and optimise solutions for specific markets.
SAFe Certified Scrum Master - (2018)
SAFe training certified
Whilst working in PA Consulting's Innovation Lab I took on being the team scrum master for a few months while also being the design lead. I decided to study to become a certified scrum master to learn more about Agile delivery in large scale programmes and projects. This course gave me a great understanding of Agile design and delivery approaches.
Professional certificate