Senior UX Researcher and Designer

SCOPE OF SERVICES


The Senior UX Researcher and Designer is a strategic partner who ensures services are driven by rigorous evidence and insights. Reporting to the Director of Design, you will spearhead high-impact discovery sprints for the most critical public services. You will work in lockstep with product managers, digital strategists, designers, and analytics experts to triangulate qualitative findings with quantitative data, ensuring every product decision is grounded in a holistic understanding of the residents behavior. From those insights, you will wireframe user journeys based on insights and requirements.


TASKS:
• Execute end-to-end research for high-priority public services, defining challenges and identifying opportunities for evidence-based guided experience.
• Collaborate with product manager, digital strategist, analytics and other user researchers to create user research plan, hypotheses and shape user requirements for product development.
• Partner with analytics to synthesize qualitative data with behavioral data, providing a holistic view of user's experience.
• Compile finished, well-documented research findings to deliver meaningful and actionable insights for internal team and stakeholders.
• Audit and mature internal user research toolkit, introducing new methodologies that broadens team's ability to capture user insights and strengthen with our data-driven culture.
• Wireframe user journeys based on user research and requirements


MANDATORY SKILLS/EXPERIENCE
Note: Candidates who do not have the mandatory skills will not be considered
• 8 years experience required in the following
• Proven expertise in leading generative (field studies, interviews) and evaluative (usability testing, A/B testing) research and ability to wireframe user journeys based on insights
• Ability to translate research hypotheses into actionable research plans using mixed methods and statistically sound analysis.
• Experience recruiting users that align with required demographic and behavioral profiles.
• Expertise of methodologies that prevent over-generalization, sample underrepresentation, and correlation/causation fallacies.
• Nurture a culture of exploring creative solutions that prioritize the best digital experience for New Yorkers that is informed by strategy, user evidence, analytics and competitive research.
• Inspire cross-departmental partners and colleagues to anchor their work in usercentricity, user research methodologies and evidence-based solutioning.


DESIRABLE SKILLS/EXPERIENCE:
The successful candidate should possess the following:
• Certification in evaluation practice (e.g., The Evaluators' Institute (TEI)) or equivalent education in qualitative evaluation and research methodology.
• 10+ years of experience interpreting complex patterns across qualitative and quantitative data sets. • Understanding of statistical principles to evaluate data.
• Experience working in cross-disciplinary teams of product, engineer and data experts to deliver products and services that improve user's experience and organizational goals, on time.
• Experience facilitating group synthesis sessions with cross-disciplinary teams (engineering, data, product).
• Exemplifies diverse representation and accessibility in research practice and past projects.