UX Design Lead

Position Details:

In this position, you will provide leadership for the talented and collaborative User Experience Design team at the Center for Academic Innovation and contribute UX Design for innovative software applications created to tackle the big challenges and opportunities in higher education. 

You will work with a highly creative multi-disciplinary team of designers, developers and behavioral scientists to provide design leadership and expertise to high priority and high impact projects and initiatives. This role will be empowered to make key design decisions and work autonomously to focus on the research, design, and implementation of intuitive user experiences for custom built software applications across a range of impactful projects and technologies.

This role will serve as part of the Educational Technology Leadership Team to advise on organizational priorities and direction. You will provide supervision and mentorship for a highly talented and creative User Experience Design team in partnership with the Creative Design Lead. 

Who We Are:

About the Educational Technology Team

As the UX Design Lead at the Center for Academic Innovation, you will work directly on the Education Technology team. This team is made up of a diverse set of individuals, including other UX Designers, UX Researchers, QA Analysts, Software Developers, and Behavioral Scientists. We work collaboratively to apply our expertise in the creation and evolution of digital education tools and technologies to enable innovative learning practices and personalization at scale across the U-M community and beyond.

About the Center for Academic Innovation

The Center for Academic Innovation is where creativity, excellence, and the University of Michigan’s aspirations for societal impact combine to reimagine the future of higher education. Through curricular innovation, educational data and research, and educational technology, we position U-M as a global leader in academic innovation to create and inspire change in higher education and to reinforce an engaged and informed society.

Who You Are:

• Your design process takes a holistic approach, identifying patterns and workflows by considering the larger system
• You’re skilled at making sense of complex ideas or constraints, seeing how they relate to to the bigger picture, and creating logical connections within the system
• You have experience organizing, structuring, and thoughtfully labeling content so that users can discover and traverse information in the most effective way.
• You are a skilled leader comfortable providing professional mentorship, identifying priorities, overseeing deliverables and providing professional feedback.
• You are an active partner for User Researchers, comfortable identifying research needs and incorporating findings into design solutions.
• You have a strong understanding of graphic design and are well-versed in typography, color theory, branding, layout, and hierarchy.
• You have experience developing a brand identity and working within an established set of guidelines.
• You are an intellectually curious, creative problem solver focused on design methodology who won’t compromise design standards in order to meet your solutions.
• You employ a pragmatic approach which appreciates the trade-off between a perfect solution and a working iterative solution.
• You keep the user’s needs at top of mind.
• You analyze research findings to make design recommendations based on in-depth reviews, analysis, and expertise.
• You stay on top of design trends and best practices for the web.
• You’re have a base level understanding of front-end implementation (HTML, CSS, and JS) and / or the desire to learn and grow this skillset
• You’re passionate about creating inclusive, accessible tools for a diverse user population

Job Responsibilities:

UX Design:

• Provide product and feature conceptualization and interface design for software applications and platforms
• Employ systems thinking within your projects, developing a sustainable structure and guidelines for growth
• Oversee the design and organization of navigation, labeling and search systems to inform how users discover and traverse information
• Analyze design choices faced by project teams and make recommendations, based on in-depth reviews and analysis of available options
• Oversee all stages of the software design process: user flow diagrams, wireframes, mockups, and implementation
• Analyze difficult design choices faced by your project team and make recommendations based on in-depth reviews, strong analysis, and data
• Articulate, develop and model the end user experience including the visual design of the application, to make user interaction simple, efficient and consistent

Management and Leadership:

• Supervise and provide professional mentorship to full-time User Experience Designers, identifying task priorities, overseeing deliverables and providing professional feedback
• Lead project implementation and ensure milestones are completed within established timelines
• Lead conversations with stakeholders, including analytics and research teams, end users, and technology partners
• Oversee the prioritization and knowledge transfer between User Research and User Experience Design
• Provide mentorship for User Experience Designers on areas such as information organization, site navigation, and content discovery

Additional Information

• This position will report to the Director of Software Development & User Experience Design at the Center for Academic Innovation
• The salary for this position will be based upon the selected candidate’s education and experience
• The responsibilities of this position may be fulfilled in a hybrid work environment, depending on the preference of the selected candidate
• This position must be based in the United States
• This is a 5 year term limited position with the possibility of renewal depending on funding

Requirements:

• A cover letter attached as the first page of your resume which includes your salary requirements
• Design portfolio link included in resume
• BA or BFA in UX Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Graphic Design, Interaction Design, or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
• At least 5 years of professional UX Design or Product Design experience

Benefits:

• 24 vacation days and 15 sick leave days a year with provisions for extended benefits
• Opportunities for professional development and travel
• TIAA-CREF and Fidelity Investments retirement options available
• For additional Benefits and Wellness details, see http://benefits.umich.edu/

Hiring Details:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Learning and working in environments designed for equity and inclusivity are necessary for the U-M community to make progress on solving the problems that matter most to society. In addition to collaborating with faculty and staff on projects that explicitly focus on DEI, the Center for Academic Innovation uses inclusive design processes in all of our work. All interested applicants, including those from groups historically underrepresented in higher education, are encouraged to apply.

Background Screening

The University of Michigan conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background checks. Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Application Deadline

Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. This job may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.

Decision Making Process

Applications will be reviewed as received throughout the posting period and continue until the position is filled.

U-M EEO/AA Statement

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.