About the job

Job summary

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) is offering an exciting opportunity as Senior Interaction Designer for someone to manage the Interaction Design team, lead best practice and champion user-centred principles across the wider organisaiton aligned to corporate identity to meet customer and end user needs..   By being a Senior Interaction Designer you will create business and end user impact and value by demonstrating best practice UX within product development teams. You will help make key decisions based on evidenced research and understand how this research impacts the development of product interfaces. You will be responsible for the delivery of accessible, enjoyable, and reliable user interfaces based on end user needs. You will translate high-level requirements into interaction flows, and transform those into tested and validated interfaces between the business and the consumer. Senior Interaction Designers play a key role within product teams, ensuring that the consumers' experience is paramount and at the heart of all interactions with UKHO’s products and services, as such, you will be core to decisions that build successful products for the UKHO.    Hybrid Working This post is hybrid, with the successful candidate able to work from home, but also be willing to travel to and attend the office in Taunton for relevant workshops, meetings, team events as necessary.

Job description

• Establish broad understanding of a variety of Interaction Design techniques and methodologies, including strengths and weaknesses in given contexts
• Translation of user stories into design approaches or services to meet user needs that meet end users’ requirements.
• To create storyboards, user flows, process flows and site maps to effectively communicate interaction and design ideas
• The creation and design of workable prototypes derived from User Research and customer engagement using multiple media (including programmes and physical outputs).
• Conduct usability tests with end users to evaluate concept designs and redesign prototypes based on the results of the testing.
• Effectively communicating user testing findings to the team and the wider organisation, so that they share a strong and empathetic understanding of their users (including presentations, show and tells, and formal reports).
• Development and maintenance of a set of style guides and patterns that will be used throughout all Admiralty products and services ensuring these standards are adhered to across all levels of development and that there is a consistent look and feel to UKHO products.
• Ensure all designs are communicated and understood when passed to software developers for implementation.  

Person specification

• You are a confident communicator able to manage stakeholder expectations. You are flexible and know how to facilitate difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders.
• You have experience of collaborative work, active networking with others and the ability to vary your approach to ensure impactful group working.
• You have proven experience of leadership and improving best practice across a team
• You are able to absorb large amounts of conflicting information and use it to produce simple, usable, accessible designs that support business and user requirements.
• You are a confident designer of prototypes as a method of testing hypotheses with others. You have previously worked to ensure design best practice, have experience working with a design system and are conversant in code, able to foster good collaboration with software engineer colleagues.
• You have experience of working with user research to best understand the user story from insights and needs gathered, and are able to lead best practice. You can offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to be used.
• You have experience of using relevant digital tools and practices for user-centred design and are conversant in industry developments
• You will have experience working in multi-disciplinary teams, leading design and user journey decisions, measuring and evaluating outcomes. You will be confident helping teams to decide the best approach and mentoring others. (LEAD CRITERIA)

Benefits

At the UK Hydrographic Office, it's very important to us that our people feel valued.  

We offer a huge range of benefits such as training and development, well-being support, flexible/ homeworking, a fantastic state of the art building, high spec equipment, and so much more.  

See our attached Candidate Information Pack for more details. 

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

How to Apply:  

Please send a copy of your CV along with a personal statement (1250 word max) demonstrating your relevant experience to the role (see person specification above) by clicking "Apply Now" at the bottom of this page. 

Timeline:  

• Advert Closes for applications:  13/02/2024

• Shortlisting: week commencing   19/02/2024
• Interviews: week commencing  26/04/2024 

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates change. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates. 

Sift/Shortlist Criteria:  

All applications are processed anonymously. You will be short-listed against the Person Specification:

• You are a confident communicator able to manage stakeholder expectations. You are flexible and know how to facilitate difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders.
• You have experience of collaborative work, active networking with others and the ability to vary your approach to ensure impactful group working.
• You have proven experience of leadership and improving best practice across a team
• You are able to absorb large amounts of conflicting information and use it to produce simple, usable, accessible designs that support business and user requirements.
• You are a confident designer of prototypes as a method of testing hypotheses with others. You have previously worked to ensure design best practice, have experience working with a design system and are conversant in code, able to foster good collaboration with software engineer colleagues.
• You have experience of working with user research to best understand the user story from insights and needs gathered, and are able to lead best practice. You can offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to be used.
• You have experience of using relevant digital tools and practices for user-centred design and are conversant in industry developments
• You will have experience working in multi-disciplinary teams, leading design and user journey decisions, measuring and evaluating outcomes. You will be confident helping teams to decide the best approach and mentoring others. (LEAD CRITERIA)

Pre-Sift/Lead Criteria:

In the event of a high volume of applications we will conduct an initial pre-sift on the following criteria:

• You will have experience working in multi-disciplinary teams, leading design and user journey decisions, measuring and evaluating outcomes. You will be confident helping teams to decide the best approach and mentoring other

Interview Criteria:  

You will be interviewed against the following criteria: 

Civil Service Behaviours: 

• Seeing the Big Picture    
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Changing and Improving 

Experience: 

• Evidence- and context-based design
• User focus

Technical Skills: 

• Prototyping  / Prototyping in code

See here for further information: Success Profiles - Civil Service Behaviours (publishing.service.gov.uk)  

Process:   

• Single Stage Interview via TEAMS. You will be contacted to book a suitable slot if you are shortlisted (see our Candidate Pack for further information) 
• Interview will be with a panel of no more than 2 people and is expected to last approx. 45 mins 
• PRESENTATION: As part of the interview process you may be asked to pre-prepare and present to the Panel to assess one or more of the critia listed above 

Onboarding Checks:  

In the event you are offered a role with us, you will be required to go through Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks which will include Employment and Right to Work Checks.  Please see our attached Candidate Pack for further details and Terms. 

Please note, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship. 
 

Residency Requirements

BPSS – non reserved: This is a Ministry of Defence non-reserved post and is open to UK, British Commonwealth, and European Economic Area nationals. Successful applicants will be required to pass the Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) and will therefore need to provide evidence if they have resided outside of the UK for a period of 6 months or longer within the last 3 years. This is not a bar to employment, but a successful applicant will be required to provide sufficient evidence to allow the UKHO to conduct meaningful background checks. Please contact the recruitment team on the email address below if you have any concerns regarding this. 

Eligibility 

Due to the secure nature of our work, there may be eligibility restrictions if you hold dual nationality or are not a British Citizen. We will consider each application on a case-by-case basis. We will ask you in our application form to confirm your place of birth and details of any dual or previous nationalities. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.