Duncan Stephen

User Experience Manager

Biography

Background

Duncan leads the User Experience and Digital Consultancy service, part of Website and Communications. This team provides user research, content design and training, supporting the delivery of human-centred University services, with the ultimate aim of providing an excellent experience for students, staff and all other users of University services.

His role also involves advocating for and promoting good practice in human-centred approaches such as user experience and service design.

His work history has involved enabling people to adopt human-centred approaches in the higher education sector, primarily in web projects but also often in service delivery. He has held web and digital management roles at the University of St Andrews and SRUC (Scotland's Rural College). He has also worked on digital and research projects for small businesses, third sector organisations, politics and government.

He joined the University of Edinburgh in 2017 as a User Researcher and Editorial Development Officer, before becoming User Experience Manager in 2019.

Duncan's background is in social science, having gained an undergraduate degree in Economics and Politics at the University of Edinburgh. He has a particular interest in behavioural science. His knowledge of social science research methods, and interest in pursuing human-centred approaches, has led to him developing an expertise in user experience and user research. He has recently completed a PDA in Service Design. He enjoys incorporating this knowledge into his work to improve technology-focused services that need to be more human-centred.

Qualifications

  • PDA in Service Design (Service Design Academy, Dundee and Angus College)

  • Agile Project Management Registered Practitioner (APMG International)

  • ITIL v3 Foundation (APM Group)

  • MA (Hons) Economics and Politics (the University of Edinburgh)

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