UX DESIGNER

Updated: almost 2 years ago
Location: Seattle, WASHINGTON
Deadline: Open Until Filled

As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem-solving skills and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world.

UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty.

UW Medicine Strategic Marketing & Communications has an outstanding opportunity for a User Experience (UX) Designer.

The purpose of the UX Designer for UW Medicine Strategic Marketing & Communications will be to increase the effectiveness of UW Medicine’s digital products and services. This role will spearhead the UX/UI strategy for UW Medicine designing enterprise-level solutions with complex and nuanced interactions for mobile and web. The UX Designer must think strategically, be creative, problem solve and negotiate design solutions, in relation to user needs and business goals.

This position will report to the Director of Digital experience at UW Medicine. 

The practice of UX is in its infancy at UW Medicine; this role will be tasked with advocating both for the users of UW Medicine’s services, extolling the value of UX internally and designing the screens, features and functionality to bring the experience to life. To make this a success the UX Designer will need a strategic, diplomatic and patient approach soliciting and responding to feedback from cross-disciplinary partners. The UX Designer will be expected to provide subject matter expertise for their team, and the organization as a whole while leading design and exploration efforts in a fast-paced Agile environment. They will need expertise in industry software, such as Figma and approaches to UX, such as usability heuristics and human centered design.

This position combines strategic thinking, visual execution and resource management. As an embedded member of the Web team, the UX Designer is responsible for recommending and realizing completion of visual changes on the UW Medicine website. This requires individually completing UI work related to the deep process flows and leading cross-functionally to manage the allocation of UX/UI work across the team if needed.

The UX Designer will own the expression of the UW Medicine brand in digital channels, collaborating with the brand manager to maintain consistency and points of variance.

This position requires someone who can utilize their empathy to understand what our audiences (patients, students, etc.) need and navigate internal systems and processes to make this a reality in our digital products.

The UX Designer is a self-starter, passionate about accessibility and usability, with an analytical mind, and the ability to convince others - from colleagues to Directors - of the right course of action that will most benefit the community we serve.

The UX Designer works closely with colleagues in Development, Content Strategy, Marketing and Creative to continually iterate, analyze and improve the UX of our digital services. They will also work strategically with teams and committees outside Strategic Marketing & Communications to realize user experience improvements. The UX Designer should be comfortable completing user research and stakeholder alignment activities including empathy-mapping, mental model discovery through card sorting, interviews and heuristic analysis. Through these techniques, the UX Designer mobilizes best practices in discovery to center the team around recommendations and goals that extend beyond feature requests refocusing members to solve user problems.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Designing Solutions: Utilizing user research and data, design reliable, usable and intuitive solutions in a number of mediums, including lo- and high-fidelity designs, user flows, process improvements and information architecture, the UX Design Lead brings the ability to execute on end-to-end practices beginning with research and realizing design specifications that can be independently handed off to developers for build.

Strategic Planning: Create, implement and iterate strategies and roadmaps to provide the foundation for UX work at UW Medicine. Understand the business goals behind initiatives and tie these to tangible goals and outcomes to measure success. Prioritize work that balances short-term and longer-term benefits and focuses appropriately on the highest value opportunities.

Research and Analytics: Utilize qualitative and quantitative data from user research, A/B testing and business analysis to drive improvements. Evaluate competitive and innovative approaches to identify best practices and encourage innovation. Coordinate, execute and evaluate user testing activities.

Advocating for Users: Work with users and stakeholders throughout UW Medicine to identify pain points and advocate for improvement. Do this work through a number of mediums, including direct contact, questionnaires, and journey mapping sessions. Promote best practices internally for areas including human centered design and research.

Design Review & Documentation: As the design advocate embedded on the web team, the UX Designer is responsible for reviewing screens throughout the sprint lifecycle and providing the final sign-off on release decisions. The UX Designer will partner with the Product Owner to create the user stories and acceptance criteria related to designs delivered as a part of iterative design delivery in the Agile Scrum process.

Design Validation during Development: Partner closely with the development team to consult on challenges that arise when implementing designs, update design specs to match decisions made during the build and validate all experiences before they are passed through cross-device testing.

Digital Brand Management: The UX Designer maintains the digital style guide used to ensure consistency across websites and apps owned by the UW Medicine Strategic Marketing & Communications team. The UX Designer partners with the brand manager to ensure brand compliance when adapting elements such as brand fonts (sizes/weights) and colors for optimal display on devices, the UX Designer ensures that a flexible brand-compliant system is maintained that meets accessibility standards and also interaction patterns unique to digital form factors. The UX Designer also provides brand reviews, upon request, for websites created outside of SMC.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
• Bachelor’s Degree in marketing, communications, design, sociology, business, computer science or related discipline
• 3+ years of experience

Additional requirements:
• Proven experience with experience, visual and interaction design, architecting, and optimizing of websites and/or applications
• Experience organizing and executing user research
• Advanced working knowledge of building onto and managing a design system
• Excellent presentation and public speaking skills, with an exceptional ability to communicate complicated concepts simply and clearly
• Experience making and advocating for UX strategy recommendations
• Deep understanding of fundamental visual design patterns and modern trends
• Advanced proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite and Figma
• Experience using analytics software such as Google Analytics, Site Improve, MOZ Pro and Foresee
• Solid knowledge of HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP and an understanding of the relationship between development and UX
• Demonstrable understanding of usability best practices, such as accessibility and usability heuristics
• Excellent communication, writing, organizational and client service skills
• Ability to manage up and across an organization
• A/B testing experience

Equivalent education and/or experience may substitute for minimum requirements.

DESIRED REQUIREMENTS
• Healthcare, education, or non-profit experience

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment, you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.



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