UX Designer role description

User Experience Designer

Summary

We are looking for a senior UX Designer to evolve our successful pilot, inspiring a team of developers and designers to create the world’s first (yup, really!) digital social care platform co-op. The role is project based, however, we are looking for someone to continue working with us beyond the initial user experience sprints returning to ensure we deliver the UX vision for the MVP and future feature releases.

You will be working closely with the members and stakeholders who will use the service, the platform development team and the founders of Equal Care Co-op, using co-designing and human-centered principles to create a groundbreaking product, shaping the user experience for a wide range of user needs and business requirements.

We have ambitious plans for the platform and we are looking for someone who can share our vision of creating a relationship-centred approach to care and support - one that shares power and makes caring abundant, plentiful and community-led. We’re trialling a better way of providing care for those who need it, and a better experience for those who give it. Using the power of technology (in service of human beings!) you can help us to shape the Equal Care Co-op Platform into a truly world class product.

How to apply

Please send an email to [email protected] with a covering letter, your CV and a link to a portfolio of your work.

There is no official deadline for applications. However, we are holding rolling interviews and will recruit as soon as we find someone brilliant, so apply soon if you want to go for it! We will fill up interview date slots on a first come first served basis so the sooner your application goes in the more likely it is that we'll be able to interview on the first date.

Interviews will be held in our office in Halifax, however, we are happy to conduct first interviews over a video call.

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The basics

Rate	£250 - £350 per day dependent on experience and qualifications
Full-time or part-time?	Varies according to project needs
Flexible working okay?	Yes, of course, though be mindful you will be collaboarating closely with a team and our membership and will need to be around for that.
Where is it?	Your place of work will be University Business Centre, 27 Horton St, Halifax HX1 1QE but we support working from home days and we will support remote working for the right candidate if you live miles and miles away.
Do I need a car?	No need.
Key Circle (i.e. main team)	Platform
Link Person (i.e. main person to support you)	Adam McNichol
Disabilities, neurodiversity and differences welcome?	More than welcome - actively welcome. Please apply! We're disability confident and a mindful employer and we're committed to doing our bit to erode the disability employment gap. We are also happy to offer help during the application process.
Disclosure and Barring Service check?	Yes. We will need an Enhanced Check as part of a conditional offer for this job. We follow the Code of Conduct for these.
What are the hours?	Full-time initially for month one then dropping to an as agreed basis according to project needs. We anticipate approximately 50 days over the course of 2020.

What you'll be doing

Leading our user experience from discovery and conception, through to design, user testing, development, quality assurance and deployment.

Working with our Technical and Project Directors, Lead Developer, Product Owner, Lead Developer and key member stakeholders you will take the lead on designing the Equal Care platform (eccoo) from MVP through to general release.

Build upon the strategic product planning, prototyping, graphic design and user research that's already taken place
Detail technical specification and build features based on user requirements and mock-ups brought by Product Owner and UX Designer
Direct and prioritise product development timelines in collaboration with Project Director
Keep an obsessively close eye on how our product design aligns with our purpose, values and overall service model

Collaborate with those contributing to the design of Equal Care’s digital service

We're building technology that fits our purpose, our ethos and our goals. Co-design and ownership are core to our work, you'll help ensure that user voice is heard throughout the development of the platform (for the receiving and the giving perspectives especially and also our other key perspectives around arranging and monitoring support).

Engage with people testing out new versions you build and support routes for new / improvement ideas and feature requests
Listen to feedback and learn from difficulties people encounter in their engagement with the platform
Arrange and participate in design and user testing days
Support and enable leadership from people with direct experience of our key perspectives

Capacity build

We want our users, employees and members to have the opportunity to build their skills in design thinking and human-centered practice. Your work with us is a key opportunity to do this.

For workshops, research and other forms of engagement, actively promote opportunities to 'come alongside' you and find ways to co-facilitate and co-create.
Keep your working practices and processes transparent and visible to allow others to 'see the working' as well as enjoy the evolution of your designs.

What you're like

You are a calm, communicative, kind person, with a passion for creating user experiences that can change lives for the better. People feel safe around you and you inspire trust in others. You are relationship-focussed and able to empathize with several perspectives. Your working style prioritises listening and understanding of the issues, needs and joys of users and the wider project team. You take a creative and collaborative approach to UX design, possess a Columbo style attention to detail and can demonstrate the drive to think beyond the MVP and into future iterations of the platform.

You are self-directed, adaptable and focussed on solutions, and able to collaborate with the wider team to deliver a best in class user experience. You’re fine with ambiguity, seek clarity, and if you don’t find it work to create it. You are imaginative and good at seeing many possible outcomes, able to gain consensus on the correct solution, then implement it well. You see people in terms of their potential and strengths.

And you are:

A craftsperson who takes great pride in what they do.
A creative but practical thinker, who not only comes up with great ideas but also has the ability to deliver them.
A problem solver who is solutions-oriented
An excellent written and oral communicator.
Extremely organised, yet flexible.
Adept at educating the platform development team and the wider organisation on UX best practice.
Able to communicate to all audiences in the organisation about design, UX and tech, and how they work together.
Excited about creating simple, cohesive, deeply accessible and user friendly digital experiences.

Your experience & qualifications

We’re not looking for someone that has absolutely everything, but this is our ideal.

Experience

Passionate about excellent digital user experience, preferably with commercial and third sector experience.
User centred and data led; able to gather and make use of qualitative and quantitative data.
Excited and inquisitive about digital, someone who likes to play with new tools and drive innovation.
Experienced in creating user experiences that reach all audiences, including those with accessible requirements.
Experience working with complex requirements and a large number of user personas.
Experience of delivering successful digital projects.
A deep practical knowledge of the principles of human-centred design.
Able to distill complex user and business requirements into a simple site architecture, beautiful user interface.

Experience designing consumer focused cross device digital products and services.
Familiar with current design philosophies; Lean UX, Design Sprint, design thinking etc.
A strong communicator to help prepare and facilitate workshops and brainstorm design concepts.
Experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research including A/B testing, surveys, in-depth interviews, contextual inquiries, and user testing.
Comfortable using modern design tools (e.g Adobe CC, Sketch, Invision, UXPin).
Ability to create interactive prototypes using tools like Sketch, Figma, and Axure, or in a browser with HTML5.
Advocate responsibly and effectively for the people who will use the services and products you design.
Demonstrable ability to design experiences for those with accessible requirements.
Comfortable creating appropriate signposting copy and defining content requirements.
Comfortable articulating the rationale behind your design decisions to internal and external stakeholders.
Managing ambiguity on projects and identifying ways for clarification.

You’ll get brownie points for...
A strong portfolio that demonstrates you’ve designed products that have solved real problems.
Having worked upon co-designed projects.
Experience of working on “for good” digital projects.
Previous experience with Social Care or co-operative projects.
Being a graphic or interface designer able to skin the product.

Qualifications

Having a related qualification to the role would be great but is not necessary. We welcome those who have taught themselves, learnt on the job or come to UX later on in their career.