Senior Interaction Designer - CO - G7

We are looking for a Senior Interaction Designer to join the Civil Service Jobs ATS Transformation programme in Cabinet Office Digital; you will directly contribute to improving our Civil Service Jobs platform with our customers, the wider recruitment service and those who are applying for roles in the Civil Service.

Your role: As the Senior Interaction Designer, you will be working as part of a multi-disciplinary product team, to design user centric journeys for Civil Service Jobs users, including candidates, vacancy managers and recruiters. You will be working with our supplier to design user interfaces with their Software as a Service (SaaS) capabilities.

You will be working with other design leadership roles, including the Senior User Researcher and Senior Service Designer, to oversee the strategy and delivery of user-centred activity across the programme, as well as provide expertise on design standards, solutions, and prioritisation - always advocating for producing the best experience for our users.

Our team: You will work closely with the multidisciplinary programme team which includes the Digital Product and Delivery team (Senior Product Manager, Delivery Managers, Business Analysts, User Researchers, User-centred Designers, QA Testers etc) and the Supplier product team.

In delivering recruitment transformation, our programme will procure and build a new version of our recruitment platform by 2026, which will enhance the recruitment service provision across government.

This is an exciting role for someone who is passionate about user centred design and is looking to apply their experience and skills in a large programme of work impacting the whole Civil Service.

Civil Service Jobs enables the whole of government to recruit people more efficiently, without which the government could not deliver its work: hence our service brings far-reaching benefits for all citizens who will impacted by this change. We enjoy enabling people to find meaningful jobs, and teams to find great colleagues - contributing to a diverse culture that reflects the diversity in the UK.

Job description

Civil Service Jobs is used by over 3 million candidates per month to view and find vacancies across the Civil Service. Each year it handles over 2 million applications and advertises 140,000 posts. The live service is used by 219 organisations to advertise their vacancies, with more joining and manage their recruitment processes. Currently, Civil Service Jobs is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provision that has been configured and enhanced to meet Civil Service recruitment, digital and security standards. 

You will join our programme focusing on the design of the new platform that will transform Civil Service Jobs, and help to improve the experience of our users. We’ve completed our Discovery and Alpha phases, where we did extensive user research and prototype design, to explore our user needs and potential solutions for the biggest areas of improvement. 

We’ve decided that our service needs to procure rather than building our own, so we’ve now moved into the Beta procurement phase, which will see the commencement of the new contract during summer 2024, followed by a build and migration phase for all 219 departments to be completed by the end of 2026.

The Department: 

Cabinet Office Digital aspires to make UK Government digital services the best in the world, meeting or exceeding the benchmark set globally by the best public or private sector standards.  We are creating a digital culture where user needs are at the heart of everything we build. Through data democratisation, automation, governance and consolidation we will create a better Cabinet Office. 

As the digital arm of the department, we advise, assure or manage delivery on behalf of our colleagues in the Government People Group in developing their own Government Digital and Data capabilities.  This is an exciting opportunity to join CO Digital, to lead on business improvements and otherwise support the Cabinet Office in delivering on the country’s priorities at the heart of the UK Government.

Main Responsibilities

For this role, you will need to meet the skills capabilities required in the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability for a Senior Interaction Designer - we have included the relevant skills in our Essential Criteria below.

We'd expect the role to have a good understanding of the Government Digital Service Manual, the GDS Design System, and our Technology Code of Practice.

• You will lead and coordinate design work within your team, alongside our Senior User Researcher and Senior Service Designer;
• You will independently create prototypes at an appropriate fidelity, using tools such as Figma and HTML;
• You will be designing user journeys in both the GOV.UK styling and our procured system styling;
• You will be communicating design decisions to Developers, Business Analysts and Product Managers to support the refinement and elaboration of build user stories;
• You will ensure designs being produced meet the appropriate service standards and are accessible;
• You will work with the wider user centred design function in the programme to identify and create new design patterns and components;
• You will be designing and leading workshops with departments who are Civil Service Jobs customers to inform your design decision making;
• You will lead design discussions with the product team to gather feedback and reach consensus;
• You will work closely with user researchers and user analytics data, to test designs with users and act on feedback.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Design Communication – You can clearly explain complex problems and ideas to teams or stakeholders outside of design. You can build consensus around a design approach, for example, by asking difficult questions and challenging assumptions.
• Evidence-based design – You can help your team use design hypotheses effectively. You can use complex research and data to develop and test design ideas.
• Leading design – You can lead and coordinate design work in your team, with support. You can support other designers.
• Iterative design – You can independently prototype complex ideas at an appropriate fidelity. You can adapt designs quickly to changes in requirements, priorities and user needs.
• Designing together – You can advise others how to effectively plan and run design sessions with a team, users or stakeholders. You can adapt a design session to ensure you achieve a useful outcome and effectively involve the right people throughout the design process.

Desirable Criteria

• Experience working with an external SaaS supplier to deliver user centred design solutions.
• Experience of working in/with the public sector or across government departments to deliver user centred outcomes.
• Experience of doing interaction design for a software-as-a-service platform.
• Line management experience.

Additional information:

A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. Although requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Leading design
• Design Communication
• Evidence-based design