The Field Museum’s Visual Designer – UX/UI will be responsible for a variety of design and production tasks working closely with the Digital Project Manager, Front-end Developer, and Digital Communications Director to take projects from research and concept to deployment. The Designer will contribute to strategy and production while performing detailed UX/UI duties. This position will spend roughly 30% of their time writing front-end code, with the remainder on design work.
We’re looking for a hybrid UX/UI and Visual Designer with experience and a passion for designing beautiful, usable web front-ends, and some experience building them. The right candidate can plan and implement user research tasks, expertly perform design duties for web and mobile interfaces and interaction designs, and collaborate throughout the development process through to deployment. This position will focus on fieldmuseum.org, some ancillary digital properties (including exhibition microsites), and other standalone online interactive projects. The ideal candidate prioritizes a user-centered design process and is responsible for the quality of the user experience and user interface designs of all digital products produced by the digital team including website and mobile experiences. She or he will also have a passion for museums in general and The Field Museum in particular, and will be excited to contribute to our vision for what our brand can be in the digital space.
This position reports to the Web and Digital Communications Director.
*In addition to this application, please submit a link to your portfolio via www.fieldmuseum.org/uxdesigner.
Duties and Responsibilities
- Work with the digital team to identify project goals and benchmarks at the outset of each project.
- Collaborate with the team to plan and conduct contextual qualitative and quantitative research tasks such as surveys, in-person interviews, and screen recordings, among other methods.
- Collaborate with the team to create a set of business and user requirements, personas, and use-cases, as needed for each interactive project
- Create, as needed for each interactive project, design mockups, wireframes, storyboards, and user-flows.
- Occasionally collaborate with the Project Manager and Content Developer to create content maps and site maps.
- Create visual design concepts, mood boards, and other materials as a collaboration method with the entire digital team.
- Design individual screens and interaction paradigms in close collaboration with the Front-End Developer for desktop, mobile and tablet.
- Assist the team in all quality-assurance review and usability testing.
- Review and audit existing Field Museum digital properties for opportunities for enhancement and refinement.
- Collaborate with the Digital Communications Director, the Marketing Director, and Exhibitions Design Director to set the standards for The Field Museum brand identity in the interactive space, and for maintaining those identity standards in all online channels.
- Help to set and maintain a consistent visual design language across the Museum’s digital properties.
- For the fieldmuseum.org website, occasionally create graphics and artwork for use as webtiles and other site graphics, and crop and color correct photography for online use.
- Occasionally create icons and visual elements, controls, and typographic treatments.
- Share some basic site content maintenance and upkeep duties with the Project Manager and Front-End Developer.
- Respond with urgency to resolve any and all broken functionality, incorrect content or user experience issues. Escalate critical issues as needed for departmental awareness.
Qualifications
- Demonstrated experience designing and implementing digital interactive and visual design projects for the web and mobile.
- Demonstrated experience conducting user experience research and the application of its outcomes.
- A desire to continually learn to keep oneself and the department up-to-date with new trends and advancements in the interactive design landscape.
- Basic CMS experience.
- Demonstrated ability to form and maintain collaborative partnerships across a complex organization with diverse constituencies.
- An ability to thrive in complex environments, adapt to change, evolve personal and departmental processes and approaches to the work.
- Able to maintain focus on the details without losing sight of the grand vision.
- Is self-directed.
- A willingness to be right while being a good sport, the courage to be wrong, smart enough to learn from failures
- Loves to say yes, smart enough to say maybe, willing to say no (even to your boss) but always offers ideas and a way forward on how to accomplish a goal or get something done.
- Generates ideas and can embrace others’.
- Supports teammates and contributes to overall positive vibe within the Communications Team
- Drupal CMS experience and interest in science a plus