UI designer
About New York Cares
New York Cares exists to turn passion into action, leverage resources through partnership, and create long-lasting change across New York City. We've become the City's leading volunteer management organization by adapting and responding to our most pressing community needs – from everyday challenges like food insecurity and educational inequity to relief efforts in response to 9/11 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
We foster dynamic relationships with all stakeholders by committing to our core values: equity, humanity & trust. We see value in each of our stakeholders. Be it our volunteers, donors, staff, or community partners; we know we work best when we work together. When new challenges arise, we look to our network of over 1,000 nonprofits, schools, and government agencies across the 5 boroughs to inform our response. We build trust with our 50,000 annual volunteers who give of their time and skills to meet the current needs.
As we grow our team, we are committed to creating a workforce that reflects the communities we serve. New York Cares is dedicated to fostering a workplace where every employee feels valued, finds a place of belonging, and brings their authentic self to work.
About the job
Reporting to the Director of Technology, the part-time, contract UI designer will be responsible for designing and documenting the necessary components for a New York Cares design system.
Responsibilities
- The UI designer will collaborate with the UX Lead to identify and design solutions for new components and flows. The UI designer will focus on the details of micro-interactions, transitions, affordances, legibility and other interface-level elements while having a perspective of the larger product design approach and overall UX of the product.
- There will be collaboration with the Communications and Marketing team to understand our brand and, if necessary, source photography. There will also be collaboration with in-house developers to ensure the designs are built in a custom Drupal theme and documented well enough that we could apply the system to other platforms in the future (e.g. email templates, fundraising tools).
The project to create a design system is a core part of a backend upgrade to our Drupal-based website. The initial portion of the new backend launched for super users in March 2021. We plan to periodically extend and revise the system as new features and flows are designed and built, with the next section planned to launch in late summer 2021. To support this phased build out we prefer an iterative, periodic contract relationship.
The first project for the UI designer will be to extend the system with new components to display particular project types, revise the grid and card layouts for more complex dashboard displays, and incorporate imagery on content pages. We are also interested in knowing what is needed to translate the existing UI elements into a dark mode.
Qualifications
- Deep understanding of layout, visual hierarchy, color and graphic UI standards.
- Experience designing solutions for mobile-first responsive design.
- A track record of designing products that have shipped (concept work is not sufficient)
- Ability to demonstrate interaction and design patterns beyond flat comps.
- Knowledge of HTML/CSS and Javascript.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to translate technical jargon.
- Bonus: Background in volunteering and familiarity with Drupal, Figma, Zeroheight and Salesforce.
Apply
To apply please submit a statement of interest, resume, link to a portfolio or sites you have worked on, and describe how you set your rates (e.g. hourly or by project) to hr@newyorkcares.org with the subject line “UI Designer”.
