Senior UX Designer
Contract: Remote/hybrid (London offices in UK).
Daily rate: Approximately £450-£500 per day dependent on experience and length of contract, the opportunity for extension or permanent role.
Duration: 3 months.
Why are we looking for you?
Founded 13 years ago as a forum for people newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MSers), the charity Shift.ms is repositioning itself as a digital product for disease management and improved quality of life.
Shift.ms is seeking a hands-on, expert Senior UX Designer to join our team on a three month contract to:
- Spearhead a Product Discovery and Validation cycle, by building and testing clickable prototypes with real users;
- Mentor and provide clear direction to Jr. Designers to continue further discovery iterations based on findings and conclusions from 1st iteration;
- Follow and evangelise with peers agile product frameworks;
- Collaborate with Product & Technology members and relevant internal stakeholders to help us develop innovative products and experiences.
Shift.ms
Shift.ms’ product vision is to be the engaging social network for people impacted by MS, that uses AI tools to recommend tailored content and connections, to help reduce isolation, improve emotional health and contribute to greater self-efficacy. The organisation is currently a team of 21 working predominantly across the UK, and the community – www.Shift.ms – has over 50,000 members all over the world.
Main responsibilities:
1. Product discovery
- Be a discovery champion of the product discovery process for our company, defining key users/personas, and competitor analysis to fully understand our member’s needs, what other products are doing and how they compare to ours;
- Plan and conduct user research and interviews to gain a better understanding of user needs and goals;
- Register and interpret collected feedback and data to provide insights to the product team;
- Contribute to determining information architecture, hierarchy and creation of sitemaps
2. Product validation
- Based on the discovery findings, formulate hypotheses about how the user will interact with the product to help identify areas that should be tested;
- Create scaled-down or simplified versions of a product or service on tools such as Figma, which can range from low-fidelity wireframes to high-fidelity interactive prototypes;
- Develop testing plans to validate the product, registering respective learnings so that improvements can be made;
- Use desirability tests to measure the efficacy of product prototypes, evaluating the aesthetic appeal of the product, including its interaction design and visual design to gain insights into user preferences, motivations, and needs;
- Perform usability tests to measure how easy it is for users to use our product, evaluate the user interface, its layout, navigation, and content to gain insights into user behaviour and discover potential usability issues;
- Participate in prioritisation and decision-making sessions to ensure that the product is designed to meet user needs and expectations by considering the impact of any changes on the product before making decisions.
- Iterate the described actions as part of a continuous discovery and validation habit/cycle.
3. User story creation and mentorship
- Be responsible for reviewing and creating clear and concise user stories that accurately describe the user experience, while providing enough detail and design artefacts to capture development outcomes accurately;
- Work closely with product owners, developers, and other stakeholders to ensure that user stories accurately reflect the user’s needs and expectations;
- Effectively communicate any changes or updates to user stories to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the latest updates;
- Provide mentorship to the other designers in the team to empower them with self-efficacy on discovery and validation activities..
Senior UX Designer Objectives*:
1) From day 1, to have ownership of user stories, being able to:
- create discovery related activities, such as interviews, surveys, prototypes and testing plans;
- actively populate user stories with required design artefacts;
2) Within the first month of joining Shift.ms, to deliver clickable prototypes for both a new mobile app, and a new version of the website, fulfilling the requirements described in the brief provided;
3) Within the second month of joining, to have completed the first discovery cycle, having tested the prototypes with real users, and deliver a clear report on results. Actionable intelligence is expected to be used on next prototyping and testing iterations, to be performed by mentored designers.
4) By the end of the third month, to ensure requirements for next discovery cycles are well documented and the mentored Jr. Designers are prepared to spearhead them.
*Contractor’s objectives to be agreed in writing by the Contractor and Client within 20 days of initiating the project.
**Specific KPIs for the above objectives to be agreed in writing between the Contractor and Client within 20 days of initiating the project.
Key working relationships:
- Head of Product
- Product Manager
- Lead Developer
- Design Squad
- Content Marketers
- Community members (MSers);
- Non-members: Healthcare Professionals, people with an MS diagnostic, family members or friends.
Successful candidates will have:
- A minimum of 5 years of experience in UX design;
- A determination to improve lives through technology;
- Evidence of using data to identify opportunities, review product performance, and support decisions;
- Hands-on leadership skills, happy to mentor and coach junior members of the Design squad in the product team;
- Strong communication skills, and use of visualisation tools to clearly and concisely present concepts and ideas;
- Experience with Figma;
- Experience with JIRA;
- Ability to learn new technologies and processes quickly;
- Strong problem-solving and analytical skills;
- Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (e.g. Human-Computer Interaction, Design, etc.);
- UX-related certifications are nice to have;
- Minimum C1 Advanced level of English;
- Comproved experience working in Agile frameworks;
- Scrum.org, Scrum Alliance or PMI certifications as well as experience working within the health tech and digital health sector are a big plus.
Contract: 3 months
Location: Remote/Hybrid. We offer a selection of working environments including hybrid, fully remote or office-based. Our offices are based in Leeds and London. Regardless of working location, we expect monthly travel to the UK.
We’re an equal-opportunity employer. We’re looking for the best candidate based on the value they can add. Our culture is hugely important to us and we welcome applicants of all race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability status. We encourage all candidates who believe they have the required skills and experience to apply.
Deadline for applications: Monday 13th February 2023
Process to apply: Please email pedro@shift.ms with your CV and covering statement (max 300 words)