May 2019 to May 2024

One of my proudest achievements is building user research functions from the ground up at organisations such as Vodafone and Saint‑Gobain. I created the frameworks for user testing across key projects and existing journeys, uncovering previously unrecognised personas that reshaped product and experience strategy.

• Digital Transformation: I played a central role in the digital transformation of Saint‑Gobain’s 24 UK brands—particularly Jewson, with 500+ branches—moving from a brochureware site with no pricing or stock visibility to a full e‑commerce platform. With limited prior insight into trade customers, the Product and UX/UI teams needed a clear understanding of behaviours, motivations, and segments to design effective purchase journeys.
• With Research Leadership: I set up and led the User Research function, supporting Product, UX/UI, and the Chief Digital Officer with customer‑driven insight. This included implementing UserZoom, managing specialist recruitment for B2B trade participants, and embedding research into delivery workflows.
• Delivery & Budget Management: I prioritised and managed the research roadmap and budget, running branch interviews, moderated and unmoderated studies, focus groups, usability testing, and diary studies.
• Insight & communication: I planned, executed, and communicated research that revealed new personas, behaviours, and motivations, producing clear, executive‑ready reports and actionable recommendations.
• Digital Personas: I created and evolved a suite of digital personas used across Product, Marketing, and Senior Leadership, including identifying a previously overlooked but commercially critical persona: the admin.

Testimonials

'I’ve been fortunate to work with Liz firstly at Vodafone and again at Saint-Gobain, where I was delighted to hire her into the UX team I was building. Liz brought a wealth of user research best practice from her time at Vodafone and was instrumental in establishing and embedding our user research function across the business. Liz has a strong understanding of analytical tools and how to use them effectively to drive insight, and consistently managed multiple research projects whilst maintaining high standards of output. Liz draws on her experience to select the most appropriate methodologies for each piece of work, while also being keen to experiment with new approaches, such as successfully running an in-depth series of diary studies. Liz has a natural ability to put customers at ease and is equally confident and effective communicating insights to employees and senior executives at every level of the organisation. Liz is a pleasure to work with, and I would welcome the opportunity to work with her again.'

Julie Kennedy - Design Leader & speaker (Saint-Gobain)

My research toolkit - Jewson.co.uk

My expertise covers a comprehensive range of user research approaches, including detailed diary studies, both moderated and unmoderated testing, insightful face-to-face interviews, and extensive surveys. Each method is employed strategically to gather the most valuable data and provide actionable recommendations.

I performed a number of studies, including Focus Groups, unmoderated and moderated sessions to research a number of iterations of the buying journey, on the new Jewson website, working with the UX/UI team to tweak and amend before go live. The new Jewson website went live in April 2020. 

We saw the usage of Jewson.co.uk increase for purchases, so next we concentrated on further increasing digital engagement by improving the Account Management area online, to support our trade customers who both shopped online and in branch. Allowing them to view their account details 24/7, a business cost saving benefit.

Account management online - to further increase customer engagement

To support how to improve the functionality and information in ‘My Account’ identifying the areas that were most important to our tradespeople in supporting them to ‘Get the job done’. The target customers were our most valuable and loyal credit account customer who use our credit accounts to help them run their own businesses by paying a monthly bill.

Following competitor analysis and review of data on the current account area using Adobe Analytics I conducted a survey on Account Management with 40 Tradespeople, participants from across the UK. They all had Trade credit accounts but were split into Cash accounts and Credit accounts, to understand what were the most important features and benefits for them.  

Results The credit payment function was launched January 2023. In the first 4 months £4.8 million was reported to have been taken in payments, with 40% taken outside of branch hours and 48% increase in usage of 'My Account'. Also we saw 67% of account applications made online, while the rest were made in branches.

Digital Personas - Creating new and evolving the old

While conducting moderated user testing on account features, three out of five participants said they wouldn’t complete the tasks themselves. Instead, they explained they would ask their wife, daughter, or son to do it because they were more comfortable using computers.

This insight revealed an overlooked audience supporting builders with their online account management. To explore this further, I recruited five additional participants who regularly helped builders manage accounts and online tasks. This research uncovered a new user group, which we defined as a new digital persona: “The Admin.”

Jewson had existing personas, but they needed updating to better reflect real user frustrations. Working with the Lead UX and Product Owner, and drawing on insights from my previous research, we redefined the personas to align with Jewson’s mission to be “easy to do business with.” This process streamlined seven personas down to four, with the addition of a new Admin persona, bringing the total to five.

A week in the life of a builder online - A Diary Study

While the Jewson website was seeing daily sales and a healthy number of visits (currently 6.6m visits a year) they were generally from anonymous users, giving little to work with. Previous research with branch colleagues would often suggest 'Builders don't use online' I wanted to reiterate that suggestion or show otherwise so I initiated a Diary Study (A diary study is used to collect qualitative data about user behaviours, activities, and experiences over time). I chose to do the study over a week (5 days). 

I recruited 5 general builders, over 5 days to show a week in the life of a general builder. Each participant was interviewed towards the end of their working day where they encouraged to discuss any activity they had with a building materials supplier online. The conversations were typically broken down into evening before, that morning and that afternoon. As well as when, each participant was asked how they contacted a building materials supplier and why.

The top level findings 

The 5 participants were split into 3 of our persona types. We asked for:

• 2 Traditionalists - Sunny and Nicholas tended to project manage their teams, while they did all the running around and ordering what was needed to keep the team working.
• 2 Soloists - Josh and Liam both had full time jobs and did building work on the side, in the evenings and weekend
• 1 Cornerstone - Mustafa worked full time as a builder and did everything himself, the ordering, running around and the work

From the conversations into their daily work activities it was apparent that they all use online, at least for research. They all looked online for something to do with their work every day.

• 2 participants did a ‘Click and collect’ during the week
• 1 mentioned that the only thing that’s changed in the building industry is online
• 1 said they looked online for things without realising it, it was just automatic to him in his coffee breaks
• Another said they use online, as a guide when they’re quoting
• Those that had the Travis App, love using it and other merchants Apps

I also found distinct differences and themes reiterating the divide between the three personas

Sunny and Nicholas = ‘The traditionalist’ don’t tend to buy online because the discounts/prices they get and the level of customer service in Branch aren’t matched online. They are typically loyal to at least one main building supplier where they’ll get the majority of what they need at a good discounted price. Sunny says - “anything that saves time is a help from a building supplier”. They’re organised and have everything ready each day for their teams to get the job done, they will do all the running around and arrange for the materials to be on site, whether that’s by collecting or getting them delivered.

Liam and Josh = ‘The soloist’ will buy online using the likes of Screwfix and Toolstation. They’re not typically loyal to a supplier and are happy with 10% off at suppliers like Wickes or B&Q. Liam Watches a YouTube video if he’s not done it before. “You make a mistake and fix your fu*k ups and that’s how you learn”. They’ll use Screwfix and Toolstation for smaller items and they occasionally use Travis Perkins or Jewson but find them really expensive. They’ll turn up to find what they went for is out of stock and know they should have planned better.

Mustafa = ‘The cornerstone’ will order online but usually the smaller things like screws. He will research online the night before and turn up the next day in branch wherever was the cheapest and more convenient to him and expect the materials to be available. Carpentry is his favourite trade, he learnt it on the job, “there aren’t schools for this trade”. Traffic & queuing for things in the branch in the mornings adds to his day, Builder Depot can get really busy because they’re so cheap.

Next steps and recommendation

It’s clear from the details that the diary study uncovered that online is used, sometimes a lot, but for different reasons.

Not every visit to the Jewson website is because the user wants to make a purchase, therefore a lot of the online visits made are actually successful and will depend on other reasons users go there. They could be visiting to check pricing for quotes, compare prices, check a balance, pay invoices, check availability etc.

Our online presence needs to serve all persona types and we need to be mindful that each persona type will use online differently.

They all used their phones during the day and evening to conduct their research and manage their business, those that used an App found them to be very useful and used them for what they could. They gave the impression that the Apps enhanced their experience.

My recommendation would be to perform further diary studies, at least once per quarter with a number of our personas to continue understanding what a week in the life of a builder looks like. Use the study to ‘drill down’ into the detail and keep asking what they do every day.