[Sigia-l] 15 User Experience Positions In Durham, NC - will relo (Full Time only)

[carolmtaylor at comcast.net]

Durham occupies a prime location in the heart of North Carolina and is a nexus for learning, achievement, creativity, research, and industry. Consistently ranked by regional and national media as one of the top places to live and do business in the United States, Durham is not only a great city to work, but an affordable place to buy a beautiful home and raise a family. While McKinney ranked this city the best place to work for 2010, Forbes rated it as one of the top 25 “Best Places for Business and Careers” the very same year. Renown Fortune 1000 companies such as iBM, Burt’s Bees, Merrill Lynch, iContact, Charles Schwab and Thomson Reuters all have major offices here, as do many others (too many to list!). 

With over 20 million customers, this financial services giant is one of the world's largest providers of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing and many other financial products and services. 



The User Experience Design team is responsible for designing this Company’s award-winning websites, mobile applications and internal workstations. Our national team of elite user experience professionals works collaboratively with the business and technology teams to design and deliver online experiences that enable our customers' financial success. They are seeking to add 10-15 people to their existing User Experience team by the end of 2010. Competitive salaries, bonuses, phenomenal retirement benefits & relocation packages are just some of the attractive perks to working here! 



· These positions are full time during regular business hours 

· No offsite/offshore/remote/agency talent 

· At this time we cannot provide visa assistance 

· Relocation will be provided to candidates within continental U.S. only 



Interested? Please send resume, target salary requirements and portfolio to CarolMTaylor(at)Comcast(dot)net (These jobs are NOT with Comcast.) 


Referral Bonus : Send me a great referral (you must provide candidate’s phone & email) and you will qualify for a $500-1,000 referral bonus if your referred candidate is successfully placed in one of these full time positions. 



Prototype Developer 

The prototyping developer primarily works with the Visual Designer to create functioning prototypes that meets the business partner's requirements. There may be one to many iterations of a prototype depending on project complexity and how well business requirements are initially defined. Usually a prototype contains a representative sample of all page types that are going to be newly developed or will be changing in some fashion. This role is responsible for producing functioning prototypes that visually meets the business requirements, satisfies design aspects, and has some reuse value for development. 



Responsibilities 

    • Develop a working prototype based on either a requirements document, discussions with the IA and/or Visual Designer, a mockup design image or wire frame design 
    • Build prototypes to web based technical standards. 
    • Build prototypes based on style sheets and templates and Style Guide components. 
    • Provide technical assistance to designers. 




Qualifications 

5+ years post-college experience in developing internet applications & prototyping 

· Portfolio showcasing prototyping skills on a variety of project types: transactional/ecommerce, mobile, website development, etc. Must include sample style sheets, templates and style guides. 

· Advanced HTML/dhtml, Javascript, Flex, Silverlight, ASP, Flash skills 

· Experience working with Microsoft Access and Sql databases 

· Bachelor's Degree 

· Financial services experience a big plus 





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Principal Information Architect/User Experience Designer (IA/UED) 

We are currently looking for a IA/UED lead important initiatives in our institutional investing business. In this role, you'll be responsible for bringing our institutional client base of investment professionals and others, into the design process so that you can understand their highly transactional workflows and complex trading or reporting needs. You'll need to understand the needs of the investment professional, as well as the needs of their clients, so that you can design great user experiences into the web-based and mobile applications that will enable them to grow their businesses. You'll need the creativity to scope, architect, wireframe, design and launch these experiences, as well as the presentation skills to convey your vision to This Company executives as well as our audience of investment professionals. 

Responsibilities 

· Set the standard for a great customer experience and guide a cross-functional team toward a standard of excellence 

· Collaborate with a team of other information architects, visual designers, editors, prototypers, researchers and usability specialists to tackle complex projects of varying size 

· Serve as the client's primary point of contact with the Design team and the overall user experience design process 

· Ensure design team efforts are in sync with the client's business goals, expectations and budget 

· Develop and/or participate in the development of user personas, scenarios and user experience success metrics; conduct necessary user research to do so 

· Conduct comparative/competitive analyses of web functions or online behaviors 

· Create and document site/application information and interaction designs, including rich internet application behaviors 

· Create site maps, wireframes and user flows 

· Work closely with our usability team to test and refine designs and prototypes 

· Partner with our development team to ensure technical feasibility and flawless implementation 



Qualifications 

· 5+ years’ professional experience as an information architect, interaction designer, experience designer or similar role 

· Portfolio showcasing IA/UED skills on a variety of B-to-B and B-to-C project types: transactional/ecommerce, mobile, website development, etc. Must include sample wireframes, user flows, schematics, persona development, presentations and visual design (In other words, your portfolio should demonstrate how to tackle and solve a problem from user requirements to launch). 

· Degree in a related field, such as Interactive Design, Architecture, Industrial Design, Graphic Design or Human Factors a plus 

· 3-5+ years’ experience designing highly transactional websites or web-based applications 

· 5+ years’ experience with large company, co-branded websites with B-to-B and B-to-C platforms a plus 

· Familiarity with financial services and education 

· Ability to understand customer needs, motivations and behaviors and translate them into deliverable tasks 

· Strong knowledge of interaction design and methodology 

· Demonstrated experience using web analytics to inform design decisions 

· Strong presentation and negotiation skills 

· Ability to prioritize design issues based on their impact to the user experience and advocate for changes based on that priority 

· Ability to communicate and demonstrate the value and rationale of design decisions to business and technology partners 

· Self-directed with highly developed organizational skills including the ability to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines 

· Solid understanding of user research and user centered design 

· Hands-on design skills in wireframes, persona development and visual design 

· Experience with rich internet application design a plus, specifically in Flex 

· Experience with both traditional solution delivery methodologies, and with rapid, iterative solution delivery methods, such as Agile, a plus 

	

	





	

Senior User Experience Designer 
In this role, you'll be responsible for bringing our internal clients into the design process so that you can understand their highly transactional workflows and complex trading or reporting needs. You'll need to understand the needs of the investment professional, as well as the needs of their clients, so that you can design great user experiences into the web-based and mobile applications that will enable them to grow their businesses. You'll need the creativity to scope, architect, wireframe, design and launch these experiences, as well as the presentation skills to convey your vision to Company executives as well as our audience of investment professionals. 

Responsibilities 

· Set the direction for great customer experience and guide a cross-functional team toward a standard of excellence. 

· Collaborate with a team of other information architects, visual designers, editors, prototypers, researchers and usability specialists to tackle complex projects of varying size 

· Serve as the client's primary point of contact with the Design team and the overall user experience design process 

· Ensure design team efforts are in sync with the client's business goals, expectations and budget 

· Develop and/or participate in the development of user personas, scenarios and user experience success metrics; conduct necessary user research to do so 

· Conduct comparative/competitive analyses of web functions or online behaviors 
Create and document site/application information and interaction designs, including rich internet application behaviors 

· Create site maps, wireframes and user flows 

· Work closely with our usability team to test and refine designs and prototypes 

· Partner with our development team to ensure technical feasibility and flawless implementation 



Qualifications 

· 5+ years’ post college experience as an information architect, interaction designer, experience designer or a similar role 

· Portfolio showcasing IA/UED skills on a variety of B-to-B and B-to-C project types: transactional/ecommerce, mobile, website development, etc. Must include sample wireframes, user flows, schematics, persona development, presentations and visual design (In other words, your portfolio should demonstrate how to tackle and solve a problem from user requirements to launch). 

· Degree in a related field, such as Interactive Design, Architecture, Industrial Design, Graphic Design or Human Factors a plus 

· Experience designing highly transactional websites or web-based applications 

· Experience with large company, co-branded websites with B-to-B and B-to-C platforms a plus 

· Familiarity with large, transaction-oriented websites 

· Familiarity with financial services and education 

· Expertise with interaction design and methodology 

· Demonstrated experience using web analytics to inform design decisions 

· Strong presentation and negotiation skills 

· Ability to prioritize design issues based on their impact to the user experience and advocate for changes based on that priority 

· Ability to communicate and demonstrate the value and rationale of design decisions to business and technology partners 

· Self-directed with highly developed organizational skills including the ability to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines 

· Solid understanding of user research and user centered design 

· Hands-on design skills in wireframes, persona development and visual design 

· Experience with rich internet application design a plus, specifically in Flex 

· Experience with both traditional solution delivery methodologies, and with rapid, iterative solution delivery methods, such as Agile, a plus 

· Experience with participatory design (e.g. Design Thinking) a plus 


	

Director, User Insights & Usability (User Research) 

We are currently looking for a director of user insight and usability to join our fast-paced, entrepreneurial team dedicated to unearthing the behaviors, attitudes and emotions that drive our customers and use that insight to inspire and inform our web design. You'll be working with industry leaders who wrote the book on some of the key methods in this field. You'll be responsible for not only researching a variety of user experience interactions, but also synthesizing that information and presenting it to company executives and designers to help shape the direction of our websites. 

Responsibilities 

· Provide strategic insight on target markets, customer behavior and competitors to both designers and business partners 

· Ability to synthesize primary research, website metrics and third party syndicated data to identify trends that could influence business and design strategy. 

· Conduct primary user research to determine future directions for This Company's websites. 

· Build collaborative relationships with our internal business clients and project teams to translate their business requirements into experiences our customers love. 

· Identify and implement a variety of methods for getting input and feedback from customers, including customer co-development methods, participatory design methods, diary studies, interviews, observational studies, online feedback mechanisms, focus groups (in-person and remote), card-sorting exercises, lab usability studies, online usability studies, remote usability studies and others. 



Qualifications 

· Minimum 10+ years of professional experience in the user experience, usability, or a closely related field, primarily for the web 

· Portfolio showcasing user research & reporting skills on a variety of B-to-B and B-to-C project types: transactional/ecommerce, mobile, website development,etc. Must include sample personas, user interviews, diary studies, surveys, use cases, competitive analyses, focus group projects, usability studies, test plans/cases, etc. 

· Must have at least a Bachelor's degree in a relevant field. A Master's degree in a relevant field (e.g., usability, human factors, ethnography, HCI, sociology) is strongly preferred. 

· Must have completed in-depth user research using at least four of the following techniques: contextual inquiry, participatory design, customer co-development, focus groups, usability studies (online, lab or remote), other online methods of collecting data from users. 

· Solid understanding of sampling methods and statistics related to these techniques. 

· Proven record of dealing with multiple stakeholders (including business partners, designers and developers) and keeping them all happy. 

· Experience in financial services is desirable but not required. 

· Must have strong familiarity and experience with as many of the following user research methods as possible: 

o Contextual inquiry methods 

o User interviews 

o User observation 

o Personas 

o Diary studies 

o User surveys (primarily online) 

o Task analyses and use cases 

o Competitive analyses 

o Focus groups 

o Brainstorming and participatory design methods 

o Card-sorting methods and affinity diagramming 

o Usability studies (lab, remote, and online) 

o Live-site A/B testing 

· Working knowledge of sampling methods and statistical analyses, as applied to some of the above methods, is required. 

· Executive presentation and negotiation skills at a large organization