Megan Drace

MsC: Behavioural Decision Science

2018

Kingston University, London

This course covered the psychology of decision making through four lenses: cognitive psychology, social psychology, judgement and decision making, and neuroscience. A strong focus was given to practical applications for behavioural interterventions and measuring their effectiveness.

BA: Sociology

2009

University of California, Santa Cruz

GAABS

2023 - Present

Global Association of Applied Behavioural Scientists

Certified Individual Member of the Global Association of Applied Behavioural Scientists. GAABS is the world’s first independent organisation representing the interests of applied behavioural scientists, primarily working in the private sector.

Continuos Discovery Habits with Teresa Torres

2018

One-on-one team coaching directly by Teresa Torres over an eight-week period to establish continuous discovery habits as part of the New Insurance Products team at Simply Business.

Create continuous user interview recruitment process. Create an opportunity solutions tree. Rapidly test and de-risk new product ideas.

Senior User Researcher

Feb 2024 - May 2024

Nomensa, Bristol

• Conduct ethnographic research with members if TfL operational staff to learn how they use technology in their work.
• Collaborate with the research team to develop user personas to streamline the provisioning of technology to new starters.
• Create a searchable database of user pain points.

Senior User Researcher

Sept 2023 - Nov 2023

WiredScore, London

• Be a founding member of the business's Innovation pillar to develop new products for new users.
• Conduct depth interviews with global, director-level participants.
• Use the Jobs to be Done framework to ideate and iterate new product ideas for new user types.
• Collaborate with engineering to understand viability limitations when developing new products.

Senior Design Researcher

Aug 2022 - Sept 2023

Wise, London

• Developed a roadmap for the product team’s new wealth dashboard by conducting discovery interviews with customers about their budget and saving needs, and how Wise fit into their wider money management ecosystem.
• Perform comprehension testing on new investment summary to increase adoption and ensure compliance.
• Work with the design systems team to test the comprehension of currency symbols instead of three letter acronyms across the app interface as part of the company rebrand.
• Collaborate with the research team to create broad user personas in our emerging market of the US, travelling to different cities to conduct depth interviews and analysing the recordings with the team in a standardised way.
• Established a scalable, GDPR-compliant process for recruiting customers for user interviews.

Senior User Researcher

Jan 2022 - Jul 2022

Kry / Livi, London

• Collaborated with GP’s as both users and internal stakeholders to understand their needs from an online consultation tool, allowing Livi to create an MVP of the tool on a tight regulatory deadline.
• Performed ethnographies at partner GP practices with front desk administration staff to understand the patient triaging process, and the workflow between multiple software systems in their ecosystem.
• Conduct exploratory interviews with frequent GP patients to determine the desirability and viability of offering a new GP subscription service for our insurance partner.

Research Manager

Jul 2021 - Jan 2022

Kantar Public - Behavioural Practice, London

• Used the ISM model of behaviour change (individual, social, and material) for the DVLA to determine the reason that driving students might take their test when they are not yet ready. Armed with these insights, the team recommended multiple interventions to reduce the wait time to schedule a driving test in the UK.
• Manage a project for Defra, conducting a discrete choice experiment with farmers to determine the relative importance of different aspects of environmental land management schemes. Managed an external team to create the complex survey, and collaborated with the methods expert to report the findings to the client.
• Conducted a statistically significant online experiment for Ofcom using high-fidelity prototypes, to test the effect size of different interventions to increase reporting of harmful content on video sharing platforms.

Senior User Researcher

Jan 2019 - Jul 2021

Simply Business, London

• Used quantitative psychological research methods to test the drivers of insurance product selection, looking at the perceived severity and likelihood of incident, as well as cover understanding. This helped inform the team which type of evidence should be shown to customers to allow them to choose the right cover for themselves.
• Conducted generative research on the New Insurance Products team, resulting in customer-led product ideas and the launching of health insurance for sole-traders.
• Used the Jobs to be Done framework to collaborate with the analytics team and create customer behavioural profiles to help product teams design solutions for users with the greatest potential for uplift.