Work Experience

Stepstone

In March 2023, I rejoined The Stepstone Group. As a Principal UX Researcher, I am part of the Product Design Leadership Team and the Hiring Team. I have been organising the B2C wide jobs-to-be-done activation programme with internal trainers and workshops. I have conducted a meta analysis, summarising all existing internal user research and visualising it in a job seeker journey map. In an academic paper review, I analysed over 100 papers covering AI themes. My largest research project was a job seeker segmentation study with cluster analysis. From 2023 - 2024, my colleague Sarah Reeves and I organised the Stepstone Product Meetups.

I have received several recognitions:
"For being almost our external face when it comes to Stepstone design and research, but also for the outstanding work supporting multiple research streams." (Jan. 2024)
"We'd call out Sabrina's efforts, particularly around leading the jobs-to-be-done initiative, the activation that Sabrina was very instrumental in, also calling out doing external thought leadership." (Dec. 2023)

My team (Team 42) won the Stepstone Hackathon Operational Excellence 2024 and received a golden keyboard:

Stepstone is one of the world's leading recruitment platforms. Every year, Stepstone connects more than 100 million job applications with over 150,000 employers. Stepstone operates in more than 20 countries - including Stepstone in Germany, Appcast in the USA and Totaljobs in the UK.

Publicis Sapient

In January and February 2023, I worked as Senior Manager Research & Insights at Publicis Sapient on a Mobile Experience Vision project for NatWest.

Publicis Sapient is a consultancy specialised in digital business transformation and employs over 20 000 people in 53 offices in 17 countries. Publicis Sapient is part of Publicis, the third largest communications group in the world with over 80 000 employees, headquartered in Paris, France.

Stepstone

From October until December 2022, I worked as a UX Research Consultant on a contract for The Stepstone Group, conducting discovery user research about enterprises in the UK and Germany. I worked very closely with product.

"Sabrina was hired as an external UX research consultant to help Stepstone better understand our enterprise customer base. It was the first focused research we had done within this segment across both German and UK markets. To add, our product team was severely lacking the customer touchpoint and perspective -- so this was quite an undertaking for one person over the span of 2-3 months. Sabrina is exemplary in her demeanor, methodology and collaboration with our group. She took the time to break down her insights for multiple audiences and was happy to be flexible in the process, course correcting along the way as needed. It's clear that Sabrina brings a lot of passion to her craft and she is infectious in her energy -- it's impossible to not open up to her. And, that translates to the comfort customers and users feel when being interviewed by her. That's all to say, I cannot recommend Sabrina enough and would happily work with her again."
Portfolio Product Director Enterprise

"I just wanted to say that you made great work here and it was great to work with you."
Digital Product Manager

Serco Experience Lab

From July until October 2022, I worked as Head of Insight at Serco Experience Lab. I was leading a team of researchers, supporting business development with proposals, and I was working on client projects. I conducted research for Aviva involving two rounds of concept prototype testing for a financial planning tool. I was also hiring junior and midweight researchers.

Client feedback

"This is truly awesome! Thank you." "We really like the report." "Thank you Sabrina and team for the great support on this test phase. We hope to be able to work with you again soon!" "Thanks again for getting this turned around so quickly, really appreciate it." "Thanks again and lovely to work with you."

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

From January to June 2022, I worked as a Senior User Researcher (Contract) at the Department for Work and Pensions, DWP Digital - Payment Services. I analysed user research with service agents, created a concept for a diary study, conducted team vision workshops and process workshops, created an action plan and a research process map with a checklist.

DWP is the UK’s largest government department and is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. It administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits, serving around 20 million customers.

Refinitiv, London Stock Exchange Group

From August 2021 to November 2021, I worked as a Principal UX Researcher at Refinitiv.

I conducted research with traders, wealth managers, investment bankers globally. I researched Refinitiv products and prototypes, explored new concepts, and customers' support and onboarding needs. I was also mentoring the junior researchers in our team.

Refinitiv, part of London Stock Exchange Group, is one of the world's largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure.

VERJ, LAB Group Services

From October 2020 to June 2021, I was Head of User Experience at VERJ, a LAB agency (press release).

I created VERJ’s UX offering, and advocated UX in the Lab Group. I worked closely with sales on client pitches, and created content for media and journalists. I conducted user research and prototyping projects for a payment provider and a property developer.

VERJ is blending science, innovation and design. With insight, evidence-based thinking and human-centred creativity VERJ reshapes the clients' approach to the digital world.

Valtech

From September 2019 to August 2020, and from June 2021 to August 2021 I worked as a Senior User Research Consultant at Valtech.

I was responsible for research in cross-functional, agile teams. I conducted discovery and alpha projects for NHS Data Security Centre and NHS Business Services Authority (website development project with NHS Data Security Centre, workforce discovery project with​ NHS Business Services Authority). I also worked on a project for DWP (New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance).

Valtech is designing and building experiences and is running digital business transformation projects for both private and public sector clients. Valtech operates in 16 countries, has 38 office, and around 3000 employees.

"Sabrina is a very experienced UXer and research lead. A brilliant advocate of our profession, Sabrina offers a safe pair of hands for any project or programme."
Design Director

"Sabrina is a delight to work with. A deep thinker who is always smiling, Sabrina brings much more to work than just what's in the job description. As a talented researcher she's helped Valtech and our clients really get under the skin of their users and customers. Ultimately this means we've made smarter product and design decisions leading to happier users and better outcomes for our clients. I'd highly recommend her!"
Head of Delivery

Newcomer of the year 2019

"Sabrina hit the ground running from day 1, straight into a Discovery project on the other side of the country. Her enthusiasm and work ethic has been noted by many."

NHS DSC client feedback: "Your work is very much appreciated, it's been good to work with you."

NHS BSA client feedback: "We were really impressed with the work Sabrina did for us on the workforce project."

Experian Consumer Services

From May to September 2019, I contracted as a UX Researcher at Experian Consumer Services and conducted in-depth customer and competitor interviews to explore their behaviors and attitudes towards various financial products, brands, and money and finance in general. In design sprint research I tested new ideas and concepts.

Experian Consumer Services is part of Experian and offering online credit reports, credit scores and monitoring of products. Experian plc is a global information services group in 37 countries, employing 17,000 people.

Zava

From October to April 2018, I had a contract as a UX Researcher at Zava. With a small and agile team we were developing a new online doctor application from the scratch in a hypothesis-driven lean way, with lots of co-design and team user research. With weekly design sprints, we were able to get a massive amount of insights into our users. Every week we tested a new prototype, thus exploring a different step of the user journey.

Since starting in 2011, Zava has delivered over 1.5 million patient treatments across Europe.

"Sabrina was the UX Researcher in our new team and helped us to understand in detail how people deal with their health concerns and how we might be able to help them better. Her expertise in usability testing, market research and user experience was very valuable for us to speed up our discovery process in which we prototyped and conducted moderated interviews every week to gain new knowledge as fast as possible. Sabrina was always open to try out new discovery methods that might help to improve the workflow of our team. She is a true collaborator that always pitched in if a colleague needed help to get ready for our weekly testing sessions be it prototyping, translations or desk research. I really liked to work with Sabrina because of her experience but also because she is a very fun and energetic person and helped me look at design problems from different perspectives."
Lead Product Manager

Experian Data Quality

From January 2017 to October 2018, I have been working as a UX Researcher at Experian Data Quality UK in the Global UX Team. I have been conducting stakeholder workshops and interviews, customer interviews and usability testings, and created personas. I have been running UX training sessions for the product managers.

Experian Data Quality offers data management solutions including verification, duplicate identification, data enhancement and is part of Experian. Experian plc is a global information services group in 37 countries, employing 17,000 people.

Spot Award September 2017

Co-organising and moderating the Experian One UX Conference with 2 days of expert talks and workshops, bringing together the Experian global UX and design community:

"Sabrina was a driving force in helping to organise the recently held One UX Conference which brought all of the UXers in Experian together. Over 40 Experian people attended from across the globe, with the goal of fostering a successful UX culture, beneficial collaboration and establishing a shared Experian design system. To accomplish this in less than 9 months was incredible. The business benefits of this conference will be noticeable. However it would never have happened without the organisational skills, hard work and late nights put in by Sabrina. Thanks Sabrina."

One UX Conference audience feedback: "Amazing job organising this! Thank you so much for all your effort. It’s been awesome!" "Thanks for a great conference. My head is full of ideas now." "Very well led! Love your inquisitive mind and clarity in summarising sessions. Thank you."

Spot Award August 2017

Research project for API software for data matching, deduplication, and harmonisation involving interviews with account managers:

"Over the past couple of months Sabrina and Missy have worked hard to understand what we need to do to enable the business to sell EDQ Match. Their dogged determination to interview sales and pre-sales has given us insight that we have not had before. Their findings and analysis have helped the team understand how we need to adjust our communications about the product to the rest of the business. We now have a far better understanding of what information is valuable to sales and pre-sales, what messages they tune in to, and how we can best interact with them. I look forward to seeing what else they can come up with and how we can all use the information they gathered to work better together."

Ministry of Justice UK

From July to December 2016, I have been working as a contracting User Experience Researcher in an agile team at the Ministry of Justice in London (Social Security and Child Support Tribunals, Reform IT Workstream, HM Courts & Tribunals Service), designing a service according to Government Digital Service Standard. The UK is worldwide leading in e-government (Government Service Design Manual).

"Sabrina is a wonderful researcher and knows the field inside out. She loves to share her wisdom and I've never known her to run out of energy!"
UX Practice Lead

The Very Group

From January to June 2016, I have been working as a contracting UX Researcher for The Very Group (Shop Direct), Liverpool, UK. The Very Group is the UK’s second largest online retailer with Littlewoods.com, Very.co.uk, Veryexclusive.co.uk.

"She brought a wealth of UX knowledge and experience, along with a huge amount of commercial acumen. Sabrina was always extremely positive and developed many strong relationships both in the UX team, and with our colleagues in the wider business. Sabrina's infectious enthusiasm, passion for learning new things, and extremely hard-working and diligent approach to work made her a highly respected and well-liked member of the team."
User Experience Research Manager

ThoughtWorks Ltd

In 2015, I worked as a Senior UX Consultant for ThoughtWorks Ltd., London, UK. ThoughtWorks is a software development company with branches in over 30 countries, advocating agile ways of working.

users' delight GmbH

From 2013 to 2016, I had the company users' delight GmbH in Berlin, Germany and conducted user experience projects for HP, Intel, ING-DiBa, Amnesty International, urologenportal.de, fotorola.

eye square GmbH

In 1999, I founded the user & brand research agency eye square in Berlin, Germany (together with Michael Schiessl). For over 12 years, I served as a managing director and was a partner, until 2012. At eye square, I built up usability business and ran user research projects all over the world. In the year 2000 we conducted the first eye tracking study; a method which I introduced at eye square. eye square developed the eye tracking software "Visualizer" which allows for comprehensive quantitative analysis of eye movements and behavioural data as well as appealing visualisations. Furthermore, I conducted ad effectiveness research and shopper research. As the company grew (50 employees), I was responsible for marketing and HR. At eye square, I worked for eBay, Mobile.de, PayPal, Yahoo!, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telekom, Ford, Allianz, Otto, ImmobilienScout24, and many more. Here is the story about how eye square was founded (in German).

My achievements

• Had the business idea usability
• Found first client
• Pushed focus on digital and international
• Built international usability research business
• Introduced eye tracking as a usability method
• Managed relationships with universities (talks, recruiting)
• Found business angel via First Tuesday event
• Drove the search for an investor

Andrew Till, Founder of JMI (GMO Japan Market Intelligence), Tokyo, Japan:

"Sabrina and her team at eye square are at the cutting edge of the world of market research today. In addition to bringing her expertise as a psychologist focused on human-machine interfaces, her company has truly pioneered new ways of communicating consumer behavioral data to marketers. The outputs of eye square's work has to be seen to be believed! Sabrina is also great fun to work with - bringing enthusiasm to the job - something that we feel as a client/business partner even on the other side of the world in Tokyo!"

eye square in pictures

The founders of eye square GmbH, Sabrina Duda and Michael Schiessl, and the two investors, Dr. Friedrich Jacobi and George L. Brenninkmeijer, in the eye square office in Berlin, Kreuzberg.

The founders and investors of eye square GmbH, Michael Schiessl, George L. Brenninkmeijer, Dr. Friedrich Jacobi, Sabrina Duda on the terrace of the eye square office in Berlin, Kreuzberg.

The founders, the investors, and three of the first employees of the eye square GmbH on the terrace of the eye square office in Berlin, Kreuzberg.

World Usability Day Berlin, 2005 - 2015

From 2005-2015, I have supported the World Usability Day Berlin as an organiser, speaker and sponsor. We have succeeded in making the WUD Berlin a well-known and appreciated conference with an extensive program of around 30 speakers. The number of participants has risen to over 800 in 2014.