UX & Service Design Lead

Purpose of the role

Working collaboratively with designers, developers and other digital professionals with-in a product team, you’ll create world-class products and services that meet the needs of real people, and equally, provide commercially successful solutions for our clients.

Working in partnership with clients and peers, you will lead and facilitate the full product lifecycle by employing a range of research and strategic methods, qualitative data and quantitative insight to inform your thinking. You will be proficient in explaining why your chosen program of work is suitable in each individual context.

From problem through to solution, you will continue to lead the research and findings through production, experimentation and build ensuring the final product experience is delivered in line with the original vision to the highest standards of craft and utility.

We need you to roll your sleeves up, but also be a natural leader and mentor. Your position in the team means; juniors, peers and clients will be looking to you for guidance and design leadership.

Details:

• Salary: Competitive
• Location: Manchester, UK
• Date posted: 30th June 2020
• Final date for applications: 31st July 2020

Please note: Despite the impacts of COVID-19, we are still recruiting as normal. We have a fully digital recruitment process, so can still perform interviews, interactive sessions and the office walk around, as well as onboarding using tech of course!

• Collaborative: working with other disciplines and clients in your product team to define innovative and effective product experiences
• Empathy: always forming and testing ideas, designs and solutions with the needs of real people in mind.
• Leadership and mentoring: helping develop other team members, by sharing knowledge and passion with the wider agency and the world.
• Client centric: creating and maintaining good relationships with clients, as well as taking a role in new business development and pitches.
• Commercial experience design: balance user goals and business objectives with brand, time, budget, and technology.
• See the big picture: Ensure your design activity is contributing to the wider product strategy and adds customer and commercial value.
• Make effective decisions: use sound judgement, data, evidence and insight to arrive at accurate, expert and professional decisions and advice.
• Conceptual: Highly comfortable ideating new product and service ideas from scratch, based on clear business goals and user needs.
• Current in your practice: As well as being an expert in user-centered design, testing, research usability principles, techniques and methodologies, you keep up with the latest trends in design and technology.
• Insightful: You analyse user problems and design solutions that meet measurable business goals and requirements. You understand how to position products and services in line with brand and market.

Further Responsibilities:

• Select, plan and perform appropriate user research and testing activities
• Create design artefacts as appropriate; for example, personas, user journeys, sitemaps, process flow diagrams, wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes
• Propose and test IA, taxonomies, navigation and key product journeys
• Utilise experimentation to help inform product decisions and guidance
• Advocate for a user throughout the product lifecycle whilst encouraging the team to be human centered through the assets you create
• Peer review and critique projects throughout design and development for experience quality, usability, and business value
• Attend client meetings to present work and make recommendations
• Facilitate and work with other disciplines to make strategic product decisions and recommendations
• Work with Product Owners to plan project activities and estimate costs

Essential

• Proficient at creating, planning and facilitating appropriate collaborative workshops with users, peers and clients to progress design activity
• Experience working with children and people with a learning disability e.g. autism
• Experience of working in health and social care
• Experience of working with marginalised communities and diverse populations
• Experience conducting talks around your research and mentoring the industry
• Has experience working with European products and bi-lingual products

Desirable

• Plan and conduct stakeholder interviews
• Proficient at creating, planning and facilitating collaborative workshops with peers and clients to progress the product forward e.g. Prioritisation workshops
• Work with Product Owners to plan project activities and estimate costs
• Knowledge of modern product management and development practices
• Propose and test IA, taxonomies, navigation and key product journeys
• Leading and facilitating design sprints
• Prototyping experience

Essential Leadership

• Self-leadership: be responsible and accountable for your own actions and growth. Ensure you are always seeking to improve your work and the world
• Design activity: be responsible for delegating or conducting appropriate design activity to drive the product forward.
• Programs of work: Select design methods and lead the definition of appropriate programs of work needed to meet any specific design challenge.
• Design culture in teams: Create, nurture and champion a design led approach within your product team. Ensure design has an equal voice to other disciplines.

Desirable Leadership

• Product direction: Collaborate and lead routines to help the team make strategic recommendations to drive the product forward in accordance to the product vision.
• People: management and coaching of junior designers to facilitate their professional development

• An annual training budget of at least £500 so you can develop your skills
• Profit-related bonus scheme
• Medical insurance with eyecare and dental included
• Subsidised massages on-site
• Generous maternity and shared parental leave package
• Flexible hours and opportunities to work from home
• Annual (& legendary) Christmas jaunt abroad
• Social events subsidised by the company, including a weekly free bar
• Bike and rail pass scheme