Senior UX/UI Designer

Our Customer is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, they were created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, our Customer helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success—including the SAT, the Advanced Placement Program, and BigFuture. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators, and schools.

We are seeking a Senior UX/UI Designer on a contract basis to help support our Customer’s business needs. You will bring your deep knowledge of mobile app design and help the team to craft visually appealing and intuitive app interfaces, ensuring seamless user experiences on various devices. You will work within technical constraints and meet business requirements and usability goals. You are a strong communicator who will form effective cross-functional relationships. As the Senior UX/UI Designer, you will partner with the business and engineering teams to prioritize UX/UI activities throughout the software development lifecycle and deliver high-quality experiences. You will support all aspects of design and production, focusing specifically on UX/UI and design research. Additionally, you will work closely with the program owners to understand their needs and help the team find solutions that serve user needs and achieve business goals. This role is 100% remote.

What You'll Do:

• Design & Implementation (60%)
  • Identify target users and help build hypotheses around user needs for projects
  • Develop and lead research (generative and evaluative) for your team/products, including leading Continuous Discovery interviews with users and leading the end-user working groups
  • In addition to research, collect other types of data to inform design decisions/solutions (e.g., surveys, analytics dashboards, accessibility reviews)
  • Lead synthesis sessions with your team, following agile and lean methodologies
  • Create artifacts to share out design research synthesis and decisions
  • Analyze business and technical requirements
  • Create user journeys and flows to capture current and future states of user pathways to influence planning of MVPs and prospective releases
  • Develop wireframes, interactive prototypes, comps, specifications, and other design documents to communicate design ideas to project teams
  • Partner with the Accessibility team to ensure designs are compliant
  • Create and present concepts/deliverables to your working team and stakeholders
  • Conduct handoffs to developers through tools like Figma, FigJam, and Zeplin
  • Contribute to the UX/UI of foundational BigFuture design system, standards, patterns, and UI elements
  • Work collaboratively with the Content, Design and Engineering Team (CoDE) to ensure brand and pattern alignment
• Strategy & Communication (30%)
  • Strong communicator who takes initiative in talking to users, presenting in research sessions, and effectively sharing findings with the team and stakeholders
  • Collaborate with the team to promote communication and synchronicity in planning across design, product, and engineering
  • Contribute to the overall design and UX strategy for product designs, including feeding into and refining a design system to facilitate a unified experience across all products
  • Document and present UX/UI and design updates to stakeholders and users
  • Collaborate and take direction from multiple stakeholders and disciplines to achieve an impactful experience
  • Participate and be vocal in agile ceremonies to ensure design needs are met
  • Nurture a culture of user empathy and deep curiosity that enables us to build simple, intuitive products for the customers
  • Advocate for consistent design processes, methods, core systems, and patterns
  • Facilitate whiteboarding sessions, workshops, and brainstorms
• Project Management (10%)
  • Self-manage workload and obtain necessary requirements and acceptance criteria needed to complete work
  • Coordinate with UX Lead, product leads, design team, and engineers to ensure timely delivery of design artifacts
  • Help foster an environment for collaboration by partnering with business and other creative units to align the visual design approach with project goals, and the company brand

• Submit portfolio and LINKS (with password if applicable)
• A Bachelor’s degree in a related field (computer science, interaction design, HCI, industrial design, information science, social sciences, graphic design, etc.) and/or equivalent years of work experience
• 5+ years of professional experience of relevant Design experience
• As a UX designer, you are independent in your support of a cross-functional team
• A portfolio of your work included in your application that shows examples of you experience leading design research initiatives
• Documented experience in designing for large, content-rich websites and applications; proven solutions that met users’ needs; Experience designing enterprise products is a huge plus
• Extensive experience in information design and user scenarios
• Knowledge of digital interaction design patterns, web site architecture, user interfaces, and navigation on various platforms (Web, mobile, tablet)
• Extensive experience designing for mobile apps, You should have a great grasp on best practices, capabilities, and the intricacies between iOS and Android
• Familiarity with user-centered research, such as usability testing, contextual inquiry, and field interviews
• Understanding the physical, cognitive, cultural, and social factors that affect design decisions
• Familiarity with front-end coding technologies and data modeling is a big plus
• Strong communicator with an ability to demonstrate both leadership and understanding with respect to project partners; Self-managing, but also used to working within a team
• Highly adaptable to new information, situations, or challenges and can work independently
• Like facing new challenges and thrive on opportunities to think creatively and come up with fresh approaches to tough business and operational problems
• Possess a ‘Product Design’ mindset, who owns the end-to-end design delivery: from strategy to comps

Please note: In order to create a safe, productive work environment, our client is requiring all contractors who plan to be onsite to be fully vaccinated according to the CDC guidelines. Prior to coming into our offices, contractors will be required to attest that they are fully vaccinated.

An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.