Category: Jobs

Interactive Designer

Michigan UXPALeave a comment

Mango Languages, a nationally acclaimed language-learning software company, is looking for a kick-ass interactive designer to help us become the most loved self study language-learning brand in the world. We are a fun company that truly believes in the idea that learning a new language should be exciting, easy as pie, and even addicting. Since this belief is embedded in everything we do, we know that interactive design is an important ingredient in the learning experience.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will involve imposing your creative prowess onto all of our interactive interfaces. You will spend your time bulldozing prodigious pixel masterpieces across both our software interfaces and digital marketing pieces. And you will do it with absolute and unquestionable ease.

At minimum, you must possess mastery of the following weapons of mass construction:

  • Photoshop
  • Illustrator (or equivalent vector application)
  • Flash
  • Pencil and paper
  • The “One-Inch” Creative Punch

You must be comfortable working with a team of ruthless, knuckle-cracking programmers that literally shoot bolts of lightning from their fingertips onto a keyboard. You will build software with them, and you will stand as one with them.

This will include:

  • Wire-framing
  • User experience design
  • Prototyping & screen design
  • Storyboarding interface behavior
  • Motion design
  • Final delivery of graphical assets for assembly

You will also be responsible for heading up all digital design and layout of web pages, banners, sales presentations, and all other interactive media as required by the marketing team.

Most importantly, you will have integrity, a positive attitude, an entrepreneurial spirit, a strong ability to innovate, a high standard for quality, and an ability to balance fun and discipline (we call this “fundipline”).

While local candidates are preferred, telecommuting is an option if your portfolio is so hot that it melts our computer screens when we look at it. Since we’re a language-learning company, bilingual candidates are a huge plus!

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision and 401(k).

Please email your résumé and portfolio to recruiting@mangolanguage.com or visit Mango Languages and click on the Interactive Designer opportunity to submit your information online.

Information Architect/User Experience Professional

Michigan UXPALeave a comment

Capital Area District Library is requesting proposals from qualified vendors for information architecture services as described in the pdf found at http://www.cadl.org/about/bids/CADL-Info-Arch.pdf/at_download/file The Capital Area District Library will accept proposals until 5 p.m. Wednesday, August 17, 2011. Please contact Sheryl Knox, Technology Director, at knoxs@cadl.org with any questions regarding this request.

A selection of information from the RFQ:

Scope of Services

CADL is seeking professional information architecture and user experience (UX) design services to assist us in creating the “blueprint” for a remodeled online branch. We envision the following activities:

  • Develop a deep understanding of the content, functionality, and target audiences that CADL will have already identified and described for the online branch.
  • Categorize and label content and tasks in a user-centric architecture.
  • Create a navigation system.
  • Create a strategy for improving search.
  • Create one or more wireframes for the architecture and navigation.
  • Test the wireframe(s) with users.
  • Based on user feedback, improve and finalize wireframes.
  • Create specifications and documentation to be used for engaging a web development firm to
    create the online branch.
  • Provide input into the selection of an appropriate Content Management System (CMS). (CADL
    staff is currently engaged in an evaluation process.)
  • Depending on outcome of CMS selection, potentially create a taxonomy in support of the
    architecture/navigation/search.

Proposals

Your proposal must include:

  • A description of the firm including contact information, history, size, range of services, and volume of work.
  • Identification of the principal in charge for our project and any other staff proposed for work on it, setting forth roles and responsibilities, including the resume of the principal.
  • Using the size and complexity of our current web presence as a guide for the scale of the project, a proposal outlining your recommended plan of action addressing all of the envisioned activities in Scope of Activities above. As a budget-stretching measure, your recommendations as to the degree to which your firm will perform these activities vs. guide CADL staff in performing or assisting with activities should be included in your proposal.
  • Estimated fees, showing details as to how they are calculated. (Proposed activities, number of hours per activity, hourly rate, expenses, etc.)
  • List of similar work your firm has conducted. Include at least 3 references that can provide information on your firm’s work during the past two years.

For more information and to apply, please visit the online posting (pdf).

Senior Interactive Content Strategist

Deborah Edwards-OnoroLeave a comment

Campbell-Ewald is looking for a Senior-level Interactive Content Strategist to create content strategy deliverables (content audits, gap analyses, style guides, content migration plans, governance models, publishing workflows, etc.) across the project lifecycle.

As a key member of our Interactive Strategy team, you will collaborate closely with our Information Architecture team, as well as people from our Creative, Strategy, Social Media, and Client Technology groups to define the content needs of web sites, emails, social profiles, and digital/mobile applications we create.

Responsibilities

  • Developing content strategies based on client business objectives and user needs
  • Determining projects’ overall content requirements and potential content sources
  • Developing innovative solutions for content presentation, including content management, workflow, maintenance, and optimization
  • Recommending and planning for content delivery across appropriate channels
  • Working with client to enhance, edit and reformat legacy and newly created content
  • Ensuring content conforms to Search Engine Optimization best practices
  • Setting guidelines for the editorial tone, style, and voice of all content
  • Develop and manage content governance models, including processes and dependencies such as key roles (e.g. author, editor, approver, reviewer etc.) and responsibilities per role
  • Author and deliver presentation of key findings to Account Services and clients

Qualifications

  • Demonstrated ability to lead content strategy across the entire web development process
  • Thorough understanding of how to communicate effectively in a digital environment
  • Expert level attention to detail
  • Excellent oral and written communication and presentation skills
  • Experience in client services and negotiating business decisions
  • High tolerance for ambiguity matched only by your desire to organize it

Preferred Qualifications

  • Five+ years experience in creating/writing content for Web or other digital media (interactive or marketing agency experience preferred)
  • Degree in related field, such as English, journalism, technical writing, or library science
  • Previous experience in professional print, digital or broadcast media
  • Experience with content management systems, digital asset management, databases and SEO best practices
  • Expertise (at minimum working knowledge) of digital public relations and social media best practices
  • Mad skillz with OmniGraffle/Visio, Keynote/PowerPoint, Excel/Numbers, and analytics suites

For more information and to apply, please visit the online posting.</p

Senior User Experience Specialist

Michigan UXPALeave a comment

Cengage Learning in Farmington Hills is seeking a Senior User Experience Specialist in the Gale Research business unit of Learning & Research Solutions. In this position, you will collaborate with a variety of stakeholders to create solutions that are more valuable because they solve problems critical to users’ success in academic and library settings.

Responsibilities:

  • Lead efforts to establish ongoing user research in user environments through ethnography, contextual inquiry, and related techniques. Identify and recruit users and customers for markets and topics of interest and bring representatives from multiple functional areas along to support solution discovery and concept validation
  • Work with solution strategists to design new solution concepts for most advanced yet acceptable (MAYA) user experience: one that helps to establish new, improved workflows while establishing consistent presentation and branding standards
  • Conduct usability evaluations including heuristic evaluations, one-on-one usability studies, competitive benchmarking, and similar research
  • Participate in recruitment activities for user study participants including: developing criteria, creating questionnaires, making calls, tracking progress, and preparing forms
  • Design mockups, wire frames, and clickable prototypes for rapid, iterative user interface improvement
  • Review information architecture and make recommendations for changes to improve the user experience, and increase usage and relevancy of results
  • Works with solutions strategists and business analysts to convey user-centered designs to technology

Qualifications:

  • Five years experience in user research and user centered design
  • Knowledge and experience in usability evaluation, research, and design methods with a focus on human-computer interaction for Web products
  • Experience working with end-users, customers, marketing, product management and developers. Communicates very well verbally and enjoys speaking with people
  • Sensitivity to the physical, cognitive, emotional, environmental, social, and cultural needs of the people who interact with Cengage Learning solutions
  • Ability to work effectively in a multifunctional team and to adapt to changes in business, product, organization, or individual needs
  • A BA/BS or greater degree in Interaction Design, Industrial Design, Psychology, Information Architecture, or equivalent discipline is required. MA/MS is preferred
  • A user experience portfolio showing examples of design direction, creative process, research strategy, or equivalent user experience accomplishment is a plus
  • Familiarity with public and academic libraries, the library market, or library science is a plus

For more information and to apply, please visit the online posting.

User Experience Architect

Deborah Edwards-OnoroLeave a comment

Enlighten, a digital marketing agency in Ann Arbor is seeking a User Experience Architect to join the User Experience Strategy team on a contract basis with the potential for full time.

As a UX Architect at Enlighten, you’ll research and develop intuitive user interfaces that meet both user and business objectives using tools such as wireframes, personas, and prototypes. You’ll work closely with content strategists, client stakeholders, visual designers, creative leads, engineers, and analytic and social media experts to shape the information architecture, usability, and interaction design of the digital experience – websites, mobile applications, and social media.

Responsibilities

  • Lead strategic research efforts to determine what types of research and artifacts are appropriate within projects; coordinate existing research inputs and new efforts. Use a wide range of general, industry, and site-specific research inputs to develop a user-centered plan for design and features.
  • Build a thorough understanding of business and user needs. Conduct stakeholder interviews to determine business and site objectives and help clients integrate online processes with offline business practices. Employ a variety of user research techniques to bring new insights into how clients understand their users’ interactive needs.
  • Work collaboratively to translate business requirements, user goals and creative strategy into engaging experiences.
  • Observe, conduct and analyze qualitative and quantitative user research, such as focus groups, interviews and surveys. Design and conduct user testing including prototype and post-launch evaluation.
  • Clearly and concisely communicate impactful findings to clients, designers, engineers, and other project stakeholders.
  • Create and refine necessary documentation to develop user experience and provide needed deliverables to other project members, such as content inventories, heuristic evaluations, task analysis, CMS content models, user scenarios, personas, site maps, wireframes and other specifications.
  • Maintain awareness of evolving UX standards and best practices while continually seeking to innovate and revolutionize processes and deliverables that lead to internal efficiencies as well as client satisfaction. Be an ambassador advocating for the user and UX Research within the company and industry.

Qualifications

  • Three to five or more years of experience as an Information Architect (IA), User Experience (UX) Specialist, Interaction Designer (IxD), or any other role which involves strategizing and architecting user experience design for high-traffic, dynamic digital properties. Interactive agency experience is a plus.
  • Strong knowledge of user-centered design and HCI principles as applied to current Web and app technologies.
  • Experience designing and conducting usability tests and using site diagramming software, such as Visio or Axure.
  • Exceptional analytical and creative problem-solving skills.
  • Strong written communication and presentation skills.
  • Ability to closely collaborate as a part of a team comprised of business, creative and technical types.
  • Work effectively with project managers to meet expectations on time and on budget.
  • Ability to articulate and present ideas based on sound user experience and interaction design principles.

Enlighten offers a generous benefits package, along with an attractive compensation and bonus plan. If you’d like to join their team, check out their website. To apply for this position, send cover letter and resume to jobs AT enlighten DOT com.