Interaction Designer for NOMS Digital Studio

Tender description

Summary of the work An exciting opportunity for talented, tenacious individuals looking to join our team and take lead in creating world-class services in the Prison and Probation environment. Conducting Service Discovery to identify and deliver high-quality, user-centred products that positively impact the lives of offenders, prison staff and society as a whole. Specialist role Designer Expected Contract Length 6 months minimum, up to 24 months Latest start date 03/10/2016 Who Speclialist Work With We're building a team of around seventy experts in Web Development, Design and User Research. This is a brilliant opportunity to be part of a growing team from its nascent stage and to play an active and continued role in the strategic development of the team and studio approaches. -A product team (one of three) of product owners, delivery manager, interaction designer, developers -Remaining two product teams, reporting directly to a service manager, technical architect, service design lead, user researcher -Community of designers, Head of User Experience in Sheffield, MOJ design community (including ten based in London), cross-government design community What Specialists Work On Digital Studio is planned to deliver, over the next five years, modern and mobile technology products quickly, responsively and flexibly. This role includes- 1.Working as part of a multi-disciplined team to design user-focussed services 2.Deliver designs that meet web standards, ensuring build in of key elements are built in from the outset 3.Contributing to the development/continual enhancement of products 4.Partnering with colleagues to facilitate a consistent user experience 5.Building relationships/working effectively with external providers 6.Disseminating expertise of how design decisions impact accessibility internally/externally 7.Communicating credibly with a wide range of digital delivery disciplines and talent internally/externally Skills & Experience • Have strong verbal and communication skills to be able to streamline complex and/or technical language, processes and information to make it user-friendly • Analyse data to produce well thought out and researched proposals that have assessed and balanced the costs, requirements and needs against benefits, priority and alignment with the programme’s strategy • Be proactive in identifying at an early stage any signs that things may need adjusting • Be able to provide a decisive and well thought through ways of solving the issue, often in the face of significant emerging delivery challenges and at speed • Be able to submit a Skills & Evidence Template in line with the deadline (available from kiah_rose.sheppard@justice.gsi.gov.uk) Work Location Furnace Hill, Sheffield & St James' Park, London Working Arrangments The role is Sheffield based, but there may be travel involved to other regions of the country including London. There is a £5000 limit on travel expenses: expenses will only be covered for meetings outside of Sheffield. Travel between Sheffield and the supplier’s location will not be covered. Security Clearance Basic clearance required No. of Specialists to Evaluate 5 Cultural Fit Criteria • We challenge the status quo: we aim to understand the reason behind ‘the way things have always been done’ to see if there is a better way to do things • We respect each other in our different opinions and are constructive in feedback • The unit of delivery is the team - we have no individual heroes, the stars are the teams as whole entities • We aren’t afraid of conflict: we surface tensions and conflict early, and address them promptly • We believe empowered teams deliver the best products: those who are doing the work should and do have the greatest understanding of the work - so ask the team! • We inspect and adapt regularly to continuously improve • Working product in the hands of users early and often • Products degrade quickly, so we regularly iterate and improvement our products ongoing • Collocating the people, skills and knowledge you need is the best way to deliver • Measure progress by what value you deliver • Keep focus on quality, making sure the whole team is aware of any debt taken on • Keep it simple and do less, whether that for features in the product or the way you are delivering • Everyone is responsible for quality Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. *AMENDMENT - Q&A CALL* Question & Answer teleconference session will be held Wednesday 14th September at 16:00. If you would like to submit any questions before hand you are welcome to. CONFERENCE CALL DETAILS | 0800 917 1956 | Participant Number: 66237841# 2. * AMENDMENT - ESSENTIAL SKILLS & EXPERIENCE * Replacement criteria: 1. Presenting work to & receiving feedback from stakeholders2. Mapping process flows and user journeys3. Working with user research 4. Rapid prototyping using different methods and tools (ideally capable of HTML prototyping) 3. * AMENDMENT - SKILLS & EXPERIENCE TEMPLATE * We are no longer asking for candidates to fill out a skills and evidence template - we ask instead for suppliers to send in candidate CVs for evaluation. 4. Structure of the Studio? - communities of practise for each role, coordinated by community lead to manage quality of work across profession- overall accountability: all sit under responsibility of head of user experience- day to day work management: candidate will sit in delivery team, work set by delivery manager 5. Location? Based in Sheffield with the possibility of some travel to other teams and locations. Although it does depend where the person will be, remote working is permissible for one day a week. However this will be after the initial stage during which the Studio and its work will be starting and building up- during this time it is likely that they will need to be onsite 5 days a week. 6. Particular skills you're looking for? -expected to work on development of the design of the digital servicewhether that is paper prototypes, wireframes, sitting with developer to work on a working prototype or real product -range of skills that will allow for design of product-role includes little scope on visual design, focuses on interaction -bringing whatever skills are needed in order to progress product-sketches, mapping process flows, building wire frames, prototype building, pairing with developer to tweak live products-spectrum of skills from pure thinker to UI code developer, UI skills are great (better understanding on how to work with code) but not essential