Unity Programme Senior Interaction Designer - HMRC - G7

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HMRC is looking for a passionate Senior Interaction Designer, who can champion user-centred design across our department. They’ll work as part of our User-centred Design Team, shaping key initiatives to ensure our services meet real user needs.

Our UCD practice provides consultancy services, tools and capabilities to major programmes and business areas across the department. Through this highly successful approach we have helped shape and design some of HMRC’s most impactful products and services, and we now need an 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 a supportive 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. 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.

Occasional travel to other sites may be required.

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, designers, product managers, and tech specialists to create cohesive, end-to-end user experiences
• coach and mentor other designers

Person specification

Your responsibilities will include:

• leading the hands-on interaction design for the Unity Programme
• creating 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
• building strong relationships with stakeholders, influencing and collaborating with them to improve design quality
• facilitating the design process by participating in research activities, pairing with engineers, facilitating workshops and communicating design decisions
• working collaboratively with your team to turn concepts into user-centred services
• reviewing and providing feedback to other interaction designers on their work, as well as advising other disciplines on interaction design best practice

You will also be expected to:

• line manage, support and mentor Interaction Designers - providing them with guidance, support, constructive feedback and design direction
• lead peer review sessions with other profession members
• actively participate 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; including demonstrable experience in
  ○ sketching, concept creation and designing prototypes
  ○ applying critical design thinking to redefine problems and use a variety of methods to investigate these problems
  ○ journey mapping and needs analysis with good understanding of information design/architecture
  ○ working with pattern libraries and/or style guidelines
  ○ user research methods and practice, with proven experience using metrics and user feedback to define/refine service
  ○ planning design work
• designing inclusive service that meet a wide range of access needs and has a deep understanding of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• managing stakeholder needs and expectations and facilitating difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders, 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
• ability to recognise and predict use cases and user interaction, incorporating them into designs
• prototyping at varying fidelities using a range of methods, including HTML and CSS, and collaborating with teams and stakeholders in prototyping activities
• collaborating with user researchers, 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
• using the GOV.UK design system
• coaching and mentoring other designers
• designing and working with SAP interfaces
• assessing services for accessibility and inclusivity

Technical skills

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

• Evidence- and context-based design
• Communicating between the technical and non-technical
• Prototyping
• User focus