Reports to: Director of User Experience
Term: 6 month contract with potential to move into full-time

Help us build things that matter.

The user is at the centre of great experiences.

Products and services are only as good as the value they generate for the Customer. Patient. Student. Gamer. Traveler. Musician. Donor. Farmer. Athlete. Lawyer. Citizen. Teacher... And, like us, you believe that understanding the user—both online and off—is key to delivering insightful, meaningful experiences.

Are you ready to help solve some of our decade's most complex social and business challenges?

Delivering citizen-centred government services. Creating products that reimagine how people play. Transforming the way organizations work. Standing out in the marketplace with meaningful experiences. Those are the sorts of challenges that keep us coming back for more. And you? You want to work in a team that’s flexible and where everyone contributes. You don’t have an ego but embrace the value of collaborative design. You know that communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills are simply part of the design process. You love tackling complex problems with an open mind, knowing there's different approaches to solving problems. And you believe in the importance of having a life outside of work.

So where does User Experience fit in at OpenRoad? Everywhere.

At OpenRoad, user-centred design is second nature. Users are engaged throughout the design lifecycle, from investigation and research, through to co-creation and development, and into evaluation and validation. We’re looking for an empathetic, friendly, and passionate user experience designer to become a vital part of our team, playing a role in every step of the design process. Someone who knows that “simple, intuitive, useful” are little words that take big effort to achieve.

Does this look like you?

A champion of design research

• Employ user research methods appropriate to the design problem.
• Perform user research through a variety of techniques like observational research, surveys, literature reviews, competitive/comparative analysis, interviews, and usability testing.
• Use design research to inform digital strategy, personas, the design approach, and requirements.
• Understand the whole service ecosystem in which your design work will reside.

Solid interaction design skills

• Use both quantitative and qualitative research outputs to inform design decisions.
• Create strategy-driven interaction design artifacts for the client and internal project team.
• Communicate design intent through a variety of deliverable techniques, including user task flows, conceptual and detailed wireframes, journey maps, and prototypes.
• Design interactions across touch points—some digital, others not.

Well-versed in information architecture methods and techniques

• Generate and validate IA concepts through methods like card sorting and task testing.
• Assist with content inventories and content audits to make sure that the right content is part of the experience.

Communicate well with clients and team members

• Lead client meetings and workshops with confidence and comfort.
• Present your work and pitch our value to clients and stakeholders.
• Work as part of an interdisciplinary team—collaborating with project managers, software developers, content strategists, and visual designers—to ensure project success.

Basically—work smart and continually produce better work than you thought possible.

Is this the right fit? Some requirements.

We’re looking at people who:

• Have at least eight years of experience working as a User Experience Designer.
• Have a degree in a related field like human-computer interaction, human factors, interaction design, or service design.
• Understand user-centred design, usability, information design, interaction design, as well as core service design methods and processes.
• Have experience mapping structures or ecosystems that illustrate the relationship between users, products, services, or environments.
• Have experience with a variety of design research techniques, including interviews, contextual inquiry, and usability testing.
• Have lead co-design working sessions with cross-functional teams.
• Have excellent verbal, writing, visualization, and presentation skills.
• Are comfortable estimating on task and projects and can work with project managers to define the UX approach for a project.
• Don’t need to be told what to do but are proactive while ensuring that colleagues are kept in the loop.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and complex problems.

Experience working on Service Design projects is an asset.

What it's like to work here.

As a user experience designer, you’ll work with talented people on important projects for global brands like Pokémon and Honeywell, as well as industry leaders like Emily Carr University, TELUS, and FortisBC. Besides fun staff events and professional development opportunities, OpenRoad offers competitive wages, overtime pay (yes, you read that right—overtime pay), and great benefits. Our flexible working environment is located in downtown Vancouver and is easily accessible by bus, SeaBus, SkyTrain, and West Coast Express.