Senior Interaction Designer - HMRC - G7

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HMRC is looking for a hard-working Senior Interaction Designer, who can champion user-centred design across our department. They’ll work as part of our GOV.UK team in HMRC Communications and Guidance, shaping key initiatives that impact millions of people, ensuring our services meet real user needs.

Our team designs guidance, tools, and forms that sit on GOV.UK to support programmes and business areas across the department. We now need a Senior Interaction Designer to join us so that we can continue to ensure we are designing the right things for our users.

The successful candidate will play a vital role in shaping the interactions between users and HMRC’s GOV.UK content and guidance, ensuring simple and inclusive user experiences. They’ll work in an encouraging environment with plenty of opportunities to learn, grow, and thrive.

This is an opportunity to make a real difference to improve services, influence decisions with evidence and data, and help to simplify the tax system for everyone. Plus, you’ll be part of a user-centred design practice/community that's breaking the mould of traditional government work.

If you’re an interaction designer who is looking for their next opportunity, we’d love to hear from you.  

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Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.

Job description

A Senior Interaction Designer is an experienced designer who works with minimal support and can influence and mentor others. They:

• Use their extensive experience to design user-friendly and accessible services that align with government standards and best practices.
• Work alongside policy experts, user researchers, performance analysts, designers, product managers, and tech specialists to create cohesive, end-to-end user experiences.

Person specification

Your responsibilities will include:  

• Leading the hands-on interaction design for tools, forms and guidance on GOV.UK.
• Shaping the Interaction Design function in the team based on best practice from the wider Interaction Design profession.
• Designing prototypes, using the government prototyping toolkit, to communicate and test ideas with users and improve with evidence. Mapping user journeys, processes and visualise design problems while building strong relationships with stakeholders, influencing and collaborating with them to improve design quality.
• Facilitating the design process by working collaboratively with your team, participating in research activities, leading workshops and communicating design decisions to turn concepts into guidance, tools and forms.
• Reviewing and providing feedback to other interaction designers on their work, as well as advising other disciplines on interaction design best practice. Line manage people - providing them with support and mentorship, constructive feedback and design direction.
• Lead peer review sessions with other profession members.
• Actively participating in the HMRC and cross-government design communities, both digitally and face-to-face by leading sessions and supporting collaboration activities.
• Seek out opportunities for learning and improvement by getting feedback from your colleagues and the business.

Essential Criteria

To be successful in this role you will already have extensive experience and understanding of:  

• Designing accessible interactive products or services that meet user needs.
• Sketching, concept creation and designing prototypes at varying fidelities using a range of methods.
• Using design thinking to explore and redefine complex problems, applying appropriate methods to design effective solutions.
• Journey mapping, needs analysis, and information design/architecture working with pattern libraries and/or style guidelines.
• Using metrics and user feedback to develop and test design ideas.
• Managing team member needs and expectations and facilitating difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior partners, convincing people that user needs and a user-centred approach are the right way to design products and services.
• Leading workshops, for example collaborative design sessions or design sprints
• Collaborating with teams and stakeholders in prototyping activities and championing user research activities and designing to meet user needs.
• Web technologies and how they affect design, including accessibility.

Desirable Criteria   

It would be great if you also have knowledge and experience of:  

• Working to the government service standard and using the GOV.UK design system.
• HTML and CSS.
• Coaching and mentoring other designers.
• Google Analytics 4. 

Technical skills

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

• Design communication, Evidence-based design, Iterative design, Designing for everyone from the Government, Digital and Data Profession