Designer UX II - User Experience Visual Designer

Title: Designer UX II - User Experience Visual Designer
Duration: 4 Months - Long Term
Location: Washington, DC 20433

Hybrid Onsite: 4 days onsite per week from day1

The User Experience Designer will perform the full range of responsibilities associated with user-centered design methodology for software development. He/she will also conduct reviews of software products and guide how to remediate usability issues. He/she must be able to explain usability principles and techniques to both technical team members and business sponsors.

Essential Job Functions:

• Interact directly with business sponsors and subject matter experts to understand business and functional requirements and constraints, and converting them into appealing, highly usable interfaces.
• Engage with the business development team and/or customer early in the project lifecycle to seek a deeper appreciation of the customers' business problems and goals.
• Develop an understanding of the end users of the websites/applications to be developed by conducting primary and secondary research, including user interviews, traffic data, existing systems, enterprise guidelines, etc., and communicate findings of user research
• Carry out user modeling and task analysis, and develop personas and scenarios
• Create wireframes and visual design mockups as needed in order to effectively conceptualize and communicate detailed user interaction behaviors.
• Ensure application-level consistency with respect to visual design and interaction components
• Prepare low fidelity prototypes of sites/features ranging from draft concepts to wireframes or interactive prototypes for internal review and brainstorming.
• Create or advise on content architecture and navigation design, Design page level layout, page flow, and task fulfillment
• Propose design solutions for identified usability problems in existing applications
• Present low and high-fidelity designs/mockups to clients for review, iteration, and approval.
• Create and evaluate interaction models, user task flows, screen designs, and UI details that promote ease of use and optimize the user experience.
• Make recommendations to solve complex interaction problems and improve overall user experience within an application and across different applications
• Conduct heuristic reviews of websites and web applications

Educational Qualifications and Experiences:

• Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design, Fine Arts, Web Design, or similar field
• High level of visual design expertise
• Experience with the following:

• Usability design, user centered design
• Information architecture, navigation design
• Interaction design and graphic design
• User modeling and task analysis
• Familiarity with HTML, CSS, JavaScript a plus

Certification Requirements:

• HFI Usability Analyst, Nielsen Norman Group certification, UX Bootcamp diploma, or other applicable credential is desirable.

Required Skills/Abilities:

• Proven experience designing responsive websites.
• Strong visual design skills; Able to explain his/her design philosophy verbally and in writing.
• Advanced skills in Photoshop, UX prototyping, Illustrator, Adobe XD, Sketch, Figma, InVision, wireframing, and other mapping tools.
• Track record of solving cross-browser/cross-platform UI compatibility issues.
• Cutting-edge knowledge of most recent UX/ UI design standards and trends. Advanced knowledge of visual design, and information architecture
• Proficient understanding of the limitations of web and mobile application design, with ideas to flex those boundaries, strong understanding of technical feasibility of their designed prototypes.
• Advanced understanding of the trade-offs between optimum user experience and technical, information security, business constraints, and ability to propose optimized designs within those constraints
• Demonstrable astuteness regarding aesthetics in web design, including layout, grid systems, color theory and typography.
• Capable of working directly with clients in an iterative and agile manner to dramatically improve prototypes in a short time.
• Competency in the following technologies: HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3, JavaScript, JQuery, Bootstrap.
• Advanced knowledge of graphic design and accessibility principles
• Advanced understanding of information systems, application development standards and life cycle methodologies, particularly in a large-scale, Agile context
• Knowledge of storyboarding/prototyping, Axure, usability testing, and survey tools
• Knowledge of interaction design
• Familiarity with principles of human computer interaction
• Strong interpersonal, communication skills and a team player
• Ability to produce deliverables within tight deadlines

Pluses:

• Master's Degree in Graphic Design, Fine Arts, Web Design or similar field
• Advanced knowledge of interaction design