Steph Troeth

Hello! I help companies and organisations to create evidence-based design.

I am the Head of Research at dxw, a leading employee-owned agency that works with the public and third sectors in the UK.

Prior to that, I helped Healthily, a London health startup scale up their research practice, and I was a senior researcher on contract at Google, working on their internal product suite that keeps Google’s services up 99.999% of the time. I was the Head of Research at Clearleft, working with clients such as Spotify, Virgin Holidays and Greater London Authority to help build customer intelligence through combining design research with other disciplines.

I have previously led design research at the Telegraph and spearheaded European customer research with MailChimp as a research consultant. As a research specialist using Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) since 2013, I have been also coaching companies, product and research teams on implementing JTBD into their discovery and design workflow.

Having designed and built for the web for nearly 25 years, I have worn many hats. Apart from co-founding a startup on digital books as product lead, I was the Director of Interactive Technology at a Montreal agency where I led a multi-disciplinary team of project managers, UX and graphic designers, front-end engineers and programmers.

Working with dxw means the work that my team does have real impact on citizens’ lives.

I have also worked with organisations facilitating social change such as the Canadian Research Data Centre Network, and volunteered with The Centre for Community Organizations in Montreal. Between 2000 and 2012, I took leading roles in several grassroots initiatives for a fairer and better web though work on best practices, standards and accessibility. I was the founding editor of Web Standards Sherpa.

I speak regularly at web conferences and am currently writing a book on resilient storytelling approaches in product and UX strategy. You’ll also find my writing on The Pastry Box Project, Beyond Context and Design Research Matters.

Past speaking engagements→

When not bound to a digital device, I am obsessed with growing an edible garden and have a tendency to cook enough to feed a continent at a time. I knit and make things by hand. I am living on my 4th continent, on my 4th island in the historical town of Lewes, East Sussex, UK.

Feel free to say hi! You can reach me through @sniffles (Twitter) or click on my name below.