Senior Interaction Designer - IPO - SEO

Job description

Overview of the Senior Interaction Designer role

About this Role

We are looking for a senior interaction designer to join our fantastic community of interaction and content designers who are playing a vital role in supporting our digital transformation programme. This is a chance to work on services that matter, at a huge scale, with people who value design. Find out more about what it’s like designing in government on our Design in Government blog.

As a senior designer within the Intellectual Property Office you’ll work in multidisciplinary teams, alongside researchers and developers, to deliver world-class, user centred public services that meet the Government Design Principles. You’ll help identify and fix some of the toughest problems in public infrastructure and you will be focussing on the design of services at scale. You’ll help the government transform the way it delivers services, so that they’re more efficient, simpler, faster and easier to use.

You will play an important role in establishing and promoting best practice and standards. You will support the professionalisation and maturity of user-centred design practice through peer support, tutoring and mentoring of others in the team.

You will be expected to be proactive and take ownership of design activities and deliverables including facilitating design critiques, aligning design patterns across multiple services and documenting complex user journeys. You must be able to build strong working relationships with both internal and external stakeholders at all levels, demonstrating good leadership and collaborative working skills. You will need excellent presentation and communication skills, across a variety of situations and levels of stakeholders. You will work together with IPO colleagues, partner organisations and/or suppliers to ensure that approaches and outcomes are fit for purpose meeting business needs, user needs and IPO standards.

Person Specification

• Experience of working in an agile, multi-disciplinary team environment; able to deliver iterative design components as part of a project team.
• Experience of designing accessible solutions, across a range of channels, to meet customer needs.
• Experience of working with the GOV.UK Design System, Service Manual and design principles including recommending new patterns or updating exiting patterns into the GOV.UK design system.
• Experience of user centred-design deliverables, for example service blueprints, user flows, process flows and site maps.
• Experience of leading community of practice activities.
• Experience of working with prototyping tools, including GOV.UK prototype kit and Adobe XD.
• Experience of conducting usability testing, either directly or alongside user researchers.
• Experience of teaching others HTML and CSS to create and validate high fidelity prototypes.
• Experience of mentoring and coaching designers across the user-centred design profession.
• Experience of line management and supporting individuals in development plans, HR processes, quality and behaviour discussions.

Working Style

This role will be carried out in-line with IPO Hybrid working arrangements where staff are currently expected to spend at least 20% of their time working onsite from one of our offices. This role is based in our Newport Office.

The requirement for attendance at an office location can vary by role so we would encourage candidates to discuss working arrangements with the recruiting manager to agree a reasonable balance between working from home and the office.

Benefits

• Unlimited Pluralsight video learning access
• Access to Microsoft’s ESI training suite
• Hybrid working with no core hours
• Substantial support for career progression
• 25 days annual leave moving to 30 days in annual increments
• You will also get 8 days public leave and 1 day privilege leave

How to apply

Click the 'Apply now' button and complete the application form by uploading an anonymised copy of your current CV and Technical sections in the application form.

For further information on the sift and interview stages of this recruitment campaign, please head to our 'Things you need to know' section below.

Please note after the sift stage, candidates may be placed on hold due to a high volume of applications.

For further information around the Civil Service recruitment process, please visit our civil service careers page - IPO – Recruitment Support , Civil Service Careers (civil-service-careers.gov.uk)

Person specification

For a thorough understanding of the role and general day to day duties, please refer to the attached Role Profile.

Alternatively, If you require job-specific information, please contact Dominic Read.
E-mail: dominic.read@ipo.gov.uk
Telephone: 01633 433189

Behaviours

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

• Delivering at Pace
• Developing Self and Others

Technical skills

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

• Prototyping
• User Focus
• At interview, a presentation will be used to assess the technical skills listed under how to apply section. Further details will be contained within the interview invitation

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Prototyping
• User Focus

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £44,482, Intellectual Property Office contributes £12,886 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

For more information about what’s on offer at the Intellectual Property Office please review our IPO benefit pack attached to the bottom of this advert.

Please note that benefits may be subject to change.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Additional details on security and vetting

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check and if successful you must also hold, or be willing to obtain, a higher Security Clearance.

For meaningful checks to be carried out individuals will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, depending on the level of clearance, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. For this role the successful individual will need to have consistently lived in the UK for a minimum 5 years in order to meet the relevant security clearance.

Further information on the vetting process can be found at United Kingdom Security Vetting - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you have questions regarding this or are unsure if you meet the eligibility criteria, please contact Recruitment@ipo.gov.uk

How to apply

Candidates to note:

• All communications will be electronic therefore it is vitally important that you check your Civil Service Jobs account regularly, as well as your spam/junk email folder
• When making an initial application for this role please ensure that you refer to and have read the attached role profile.

Sift

An initial sift of applications will be carried out to create a shortlist.

This will be based on the evidence provided for the following Success Profile elements:

CV

Please upload an anonymised copy of your current CV. Your CV will be used to assess your suitability for the role therefore please ensure that it demonstrates your technical skills and experience against the essential requirements detailed in the role profile document.

Technical

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

In the 250 word box provided please ensure to cover the following criteria:

• Prototyping
• User focus

Interviews

If invited to interview Behaviour, Experience and Technical based questioning will be used.

Please note candidates that proceed to the interview stage will be required to deliver a presentation. Details will be provided in the invite to interview information.

Specific information regarding the Success Profile elements that will be assessed at interview will be contained within the interview invitation.

Interviews for this role will be carried out in person at our Newport Office.

IMPORTANT: CVs sent direct to the IPO will not be accepted.

The successful candidate would be expected to remain in the role for a minimum of 12 months before applying for another role.

Please note:

• There may be important information contained within the job role profile candidates may also wish to refer to. We recommend candidates download and save a copy of the role profile for reference.

Applicants to note:

This post is being advertised to Internal, across Government and external candidates at the same time.

Incomplete and/or late submissions will not be accepted or considered.

Should you have any queries or require any assistance in this matter, please contact the IPO Recruitment team at Recruitment@ipo.gov.uk  prior to the closing of the post.

In line with Government guidance, successfully appointed candidates will need to provide documents for our Right to Work checks. Information on this will be sent within the invite to interview text.

If you require an adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, then please let the recruitment team know via; recruitment@ipo.gov.uk

For more information on the IPO’s terms and conditions, please review the attached IPO Modernised Terms and Conditions document attached at the bottom of this advert.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).