[Sigia-l] JOB: Blurb, Inc :: Senior IA, San Francisco (Full time)

[Chad Jennings]

SENIOR INFORMATION ARCHITECT
Blurb, Inc, San Francisco (Full Time)

If you never get on a bus or a plane (or for the more nimble a bike)  
without at least one book in hand, you could be the ideal candidate  
to join Blurb (www.blurb.com), a venture-backed startup located in  
downtown San Francisco near public transit and ferries.

Since people first put ink to papyrus, books have captured our best  
thinking, learning and experiences. They are the legacy that each  
generation provides for the next. Everywhere you look, new technology  
is letting regular people participate in parts of our culture once  
accessible only to the elite few. Today, anyone with Web access can  
share their opinions online, with the click of a mouse. In the same  
way, Blurb helps ordinary people express their passions and record  
their experiences in books to share with their families, communities  
and the world.

We’re developing a complete platform that allows anyone – blogger,  
chef, marketer, parent, student, traveler, etc -- to create  
professional-quality books.  You can create one book as affordably as  
five hundred.  We're putting the power of traditional print  
publishers into everybody's hands. We believe in books, and the  
people who make them, too. In the weeks and months to come, we'll be  
launching a community of authors and bookmaking specialists – a place  
to find the content, camaraderie, inspiration and guidance to make  
your books everything they can be.

This is your chance to join an exciting company in the early stages  
of our development.

:: ENVIRONMENT
Blurb is a startup, which means you’ll likely wear multiple hats and  
be involved in various aspects of building and running the business.   
We are looking for smart people who learn fast, solve problems, and  
get the job done.  Our products are focused on the user experience,  
so you will need to be. We have a world-class team drawn from  
companies such as Apple, Intuit, Corbis, Kodak, Microsoft, Taschen  
Publishers, Lonely Planet and Sony.

:: RESPONSIBILITIES
• Define the customer experience for Blurb's online solutions  
including web applications, community tools, and marketing  
communications
• Be a true advocate for our customers and help fulfill our vision of  
continually building usable, useful, and desirable products
• Define, document, prioritize and track user requirements
• Employ user-centered design processes and tools including sitemaps,  
wireframes, personas, use scenarios, task flows, page inventories,  
etc...
• Develop controlled vocabularies, classification systems, and a  
platform to support user-generated content and folksonomies
• Audit competitive sites and interactive strategies and document  
best practices
• Facilitate formal and informal user participation in the design  
process through card-sorting, low-fidelity prototypes, participatory  
design and similar methods
• Actively and effectively mentor, teach, contribute to and promote  
the growth of the user experience team within the company
• Facilitate brainstorms and work sessions with cross-disciplinary teams
• Collaborate with visual design, editorial, business, engineering  
teams to build design solutions
• This position reports to the VP of Design and User Experience

:: QUALIFICATIONS
• At least 3 years of experience developing interactive products as  
an Information architect, Interaction, or Experience designer (Salary  
determined by experience)
• A degree in a related field, such as technical communications,  
human-computer interaction, library science graphic design, or  
industrial design
• Development or analysis of user-centered design processes,  
techniques, and tools.
• Demonstrate excellent communication skills with staff, peers,  
management and executives
• Demonstrate and model deep understanding of the value of other  
disciplines, and their interaction with IA and UE
• Exceptional information presentation (graphic and written) experience
• Experience running, assisting or moderating end-user testing.
• Previous experience in a small and multidisciplinary environment
• A love of books and a passion for design.

:: RECENT PRESS
• Demo 2006 conference: http://www.demo.com/demonstrators/ 
demo2006/62972.html
• CNet: http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6037127.html?tag=ne.vid
• Business Week: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/02/demo_show/ 
index_01.htm?chan=tc?campaign_id=rss_tech

:: INTERESTED?
Please email your resume and a URL to examples of work to  
uedesignjobs at blurb.com