• cannot support C2C and must be in the Houston area and able to be onsite

Aquent has an EXCITING opportunity for a UX DesignOps Advisor in Houston, TX...

This is a hybrid position and it will be required that you are in the office 1 day/week. Please consider this when applying.

Are you passionate about design and product, thrive while building trusting, collaborative partnerships, geek out on process – and have fun doing it?

Our major energy client is looking to expand one of their most strategic, ambitious, and innovative teams to date! You’ll be a part of their design system leadership team, supporting high-quality design work, and driving efficient delivery of products and services that improve on the long-term success of both their clients and the Company.

Your role as the User eXperience DesignOps Advisor is a strategic part of both the UX and Product Leadership teams for the Company’s Digital Technology groups.

This key role will drive the implementation of UX practices across Digital Technology and Product Teams with the goal of standardizing process, methods, and tools that support design and allow design to scale efficiently. You will provide support that helps to create impact that is intentionally and intelligently crafted, acting as a bridge that helps enable collaboration among cross-disciplinary team members. You will be tasked with ensuring that the design team is supported so that it can focus on designing and researching.

POSITION OBJECTIVES

The Company is looking for someone to advise and influence the design and implementation of their user experience practices across product teams, their objectives might/will be:

- Engage and coordinate with Product Leaders to ensure proper team focus on UX

- Advise Product Teams on staffing, research, design approaches, and other facets based on UX risk

- Advise Product Teams on improving quality and impact of design outputs for the products with tools for self-assessment, goal setting, and maturation

- General assistance with UX Core Team goals

THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

As a part of the Digital Technology Team, directly reporting to the Lead of UX Strategy, you will work with the rest of the UX Core team and the Digital Product teams to establish UX processes and measures that support scalable solutions.

STRATEGIC NEEDS AND CHALLENGES

Although the Company has been a leader in Digital solutions that drive the success of its clients – they realize that how their users experience their solutions is directly correlated to the value they perceive.

As part of their Customer Centricity focus, they believe that a clear understanding of their users sentiment can help them continually improve their clients experience, and lead to long term success for both their clients, and the Company. This role contributes to their combined success by helping to influence collaboration and connectivity amongst teams and designers spread across multiple projects that intersect in ever more complex contexts. The products and experiences they design continue to become more elaborate, and teams are often dispersed across locations; as a result, workflows and decision making are increasingly distributed.

In order to manage rapidly escalating design complexities, they need to scale design by applying their own design-thinking and user-centered methods to design processes.

Their efforts will be focused across 3 main areas:

- How we work TOGETHER

- How we get work DONE

- How our work creates IMPACT

A list of high-level responsibilities and expected experience/skills follows:

RESPONSIBILITIES

- Define UX risk for teams based on Project details and goals

- Advise Product Teams on UX practices with the goal of improving quality and impact of design outputs for the products

- Identification of escalating UX debt

- Assist in promoting and fostering experience alignment across the Company ecosystem

- Engage with stakeholders, product owners, developers, and end-users to gain insights that inform your design decisions.

- Promote the value of user experience at project, portfolio, and organization level.

- Produce user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and user interface specification based on project requirements and user stories

- Visualize solutions using professional design tools as well as sticky notes, sketch boards, whiteboard markers or whatever tools are necessary to rapidly work from concepts to prototypes. Rapidly and iteratively create low and high-fidelity clickable and interactive prototypes

- Engage with users, as necessary, on-site at operational locations (domestic and international) for observational research as well as design validation

- Plan and execute evaluative research to get feedback iteratively and rapidly on ideas and designs at various stages in design and development. Methods to include: early design concept testing, prototype testing, remote testing, surveys, benchmark studies, usability test, heuristic evaluation, etc

- Identify gaps between the current and the ideal user experience to drive innovation focus and purpose

- Continuously challenge the effectiveness of design solutions, recommending changes, as appropriate

- Serve as a subject matter expert on user-centered design, design thinking and our end-users needs

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE TEAM

- Bachelors or Masters in Human Factors, Interaction, Industrial or Product Design, Cognitive, Experimental or Behavioral Psychology, Anthropology, or related field (or equivalent professional experience)

- 5+ years working in the User eXperience field, preferably in a lead role

- Strong communication and organizational influence skills

- Ability and desire to coach non-design professionals in value and techniques of UX

- Ability and desire to create inclusive and accessible design patterns according to WCAG standards as well as user expectations and needs

- Ability and desire to give design reviews and feedback to more junior UX designers

- Experience using standard UX design tools to rapidly translate concepts into interfaces

- Experience conducting Design Thinking workshops or Design Sprints

- Experience applying research findings to interaction design

- Understanding of user-centered design user research methodologies including quantitative and qualitative techniques for both evaluative and generative research

- Understanding of user-centered design methods and best practices

- Understanding of design thinking methods, templates, and mindset

- Proficient in MS office products, working knowledge of the Adobe suite and standard design tools

- Experience working with cross functional, collaborative teams

- Extremely detail oriented, flexible to change, high tolerance for ambiguity and self-motivated

- Must be comfortable making decisions independently as well as within a team

Our client is an equal employment opportunity employer. Qualified applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, status as a protected veteran or other characteristics protected by law.

Our client is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor- priority referral Protected Veterans requested.

The target hiring compensation range for this role is $80/hour to $85/hour. Compensation is based on several factors including, but not limited to education, relevant work experience, relevant certifications, and location. If applicable add additional language: Additional benefits offered may include; medical health insurance and dental insurance, life insurance, and eligibility to participate in 401k plan with company match
Houston TX USA

Salary Criteria