User Experience Researcher - Ursus, Inc.

JOB DESCRIPTION

About you -- you thrive conducting research on low-fidelity designs as well as products that have already launched to identify improvement opportunities. You are comfortable working across disciplines to understand the stakeholder's intent, nudge teams to think more holistically about their end users, and capture data to influence design and product decisions.

You can juggle multiple projects in different phases at once and have a natural curiosity to seek answers for current projects while also collecting data from users for longer term opportunities. You enjoy working in cross disciplinary teams and appreciate the opportunity to share your expertise to people who are unfamiliar with the value UXR can provide to teams.

While we are primarily focused on usability testing, we are open to leveraging early and exploratory research as well. You'll work with a UX leader who understands how to leverage your research results and who will help you foster buy in to acting on your results. If you join our team, you'll partner with product owners and engineers to make sure we understand user (customer and employee) needs as we design digital solutions.

Tasks and Responsibilities

• Provide development and support to the customer-facing design system including new components, defects, accessibility, and page templates
• Act as designer-developer, switching hats in both the areas of design & develop, as Subject Matter Expert (SME) assisting with decision making for some high visibility on-going projects
• Develop reusable and responsive, interactive patterns and code libraries that meet the highest W3 standards for HTML and CSS
• Create clean semantic HTML markup that passes WCAG & ADA Accessibility standards
• Ensure the technical feasibility of UI/UX designs standards
• Collaborate with analysts, developers and architects for successful implementation and component requirements
• Research, design, develop, test, build, and coordinate the conversion and/or integration of UX designs into the JS/Java codebase
• Participate in conceptualizing, prioritizing, and creating strategies for the product UX
• Develop well-structured and maintainable code that follows the best practices and industry standards
• Work with team members to develop UI prototypes as necessary and validate ideas with a data-driven approach
• Design and develop UI and UX interfaces
• Design and maintain design files, wireframes, and mock-ups
• Proficient understanding of cross-browser compatibility issues and ways to work around them
• Remain current on user interface trends and programming techniques and suggest new tools and methods as necessary.
• May assist with new user interface testing and participate in usability reviews
• Work cross-organizationally with multiple teams and individuals

Minimum Qualifications

• High School or GED
• Deep experience in front-end web application development with hands on programming
• Experience with creating conceptual and detailed design solutions based on end user needs
• Expertise of cross-browser compatibility issues and client-side performance considerations
• Knowledge of using technology Storyboarding tools like Adobe creative suite, Sketch and Envision
• History of working with cross functional teams using Agile/Scrum methodologies .
• Experience with creating conceptual and detailed design solutions based on end user needs
• Experience with communicating and working with business, technology users to create holistic solutions
• Skills, knowledge, and experience using end to end Human centered design-HCD techniques including design, research, and usability

Preferred Qualifications

• Bi-lingual (Spanish speaking)
• UI/UX design or web developer certifications & training
• Previous experience of the Electric and Gas Utility Industry
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or applicable business degree from an accredited university OR Relevant business technical experience
• Proficient understanding of web markup, including HTML5, CSS3, and React
• Basic understanding of server-side CSS pre-processing platform (SASS)
• Exposure to front end user frameworks (Vue.js, Angularjs, Reactjs, Jquery etc)
• Familiarity with screen reader tools is a plus (VoiceOver, JAWS, NVDA)

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