User interface developer for an R shiny application

Tender description

Who Speclialist Work With You will work with a multidisciplinary project team working on a new decision support tool based upon a probabilistic graphical model of risk to digital archives. You will work with the Service Owner for Digital Preservation (the project lead) and with a Research Assistant in Applied Statistics, who has been maintaining and deploying the application since the original developers completed the first version. You will also discuss ideas and feedback on an ad hoc basis with a Senior Digital Archivist, a User Researcher and Statisticians from the University of Warwick. What Specialists Work On An experienced front-end developer is required to improve the graphical user interface of an R shiny application. This is a decision support tool which allows archivists to assess risk by changing parameters and seeing how different policies or scenarios alter their risk score. The underlying methodology for quantifying this risk is a Bayesian statistical network. Where the Work Takes Place Not applicable – full remote working. Early Market Engagement The prototype tool is live on shinyapps.io and we have a prioritised list of improvements based on early feedback from users. We also anticipate having a usability report from a professional user researcher before this work starts. https://nationalarchives.shinyapps.io/DiAGRAM-dev/ Working Arrangements You will work in an Agile way and scope the work initially. The whole team is working remotely and we would expect the developer to have their own equipment and technology. In particular, you will need access to R, git and the ability to download R packages. Work patterns should fit within standard UK working hours i.e. weekdays 9-5 though we are willing to discuss more flexible arrangements. There will be regular virtual meetings, which are currently held on MS Teams, and the team uses Slack for quick communications, but there is flexibility with the virtual communication methods available. Work Location Not applicable – full remote working. Security Clearance Baseline security clearance will be required (BPSS). Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience Have strong experience of developing applications in R using shiny and other supporting packages (or similar technologies, please specify). Have experience of User Interface development for a web-based application including interactive graphs and visualisations. Have the ability to test components and pages against accessibility standards and fix accessibility issues identified through testing. Write clean, accessible and performant code that it is open by default and easy for others to re-use. Work in an Agile way, following a test-driver approach and demonstrating progress and discussing findings regularly. Nice to Haves Have experience of coding in R. Have a working knowledge of Git for version control. Have a working knowledge of HTML, CSS and/or JavaScript. Have a working knowledge of performance optimisation. Have a background in statistics or analysis. No. of Specialists to Evaluate 7 Cultural Fit Criteria Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical colleagues. Work effectively within a multidisciplinary team. Apply technical expertise to help the team find the best solution to a problem. Actively seek feedback to steer their developments. Be able to work independently to deliver work to a deadline. Display initiative in proposing and testing different ways to improve the tool’s usability. Assessment Method Reference Interview Scenario or test Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers No questions have been answered yet Budget range £833.33 + vat (£1000 inc vat)