Sr Consultant, User Experience (UX Research Lead)

Nationwide Mutual Insurance•Columbus, OH

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

If you're passionate about helping a Fortune 100 company with nearly $70 billion in annual sales drive their strategy forward through innovative product development and advancing strategic partnerships to protect customers, then Nationwide is the place for you! At Nationwide®, "on your side" goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we're looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care. The Role: Nationwide is looking for a seasoned User Experience (UX) Research Lead to join the Emerging UX team within our UX & Human Centered Practices organization. We focus on value-chain innovation to advance enterprise strategies, lead human-centered work in Generative AI and other emerging experiences, and partner closely with the Customer Office to inform customer journeys and key moments that matter. As a UX Research Lead, you will directly engage with target customers to identify unmet needs, assess the desirability of opportunities, and evaluate the usability of design solutions. You will build learning plans, select appropriate research methodologies, execute studies, synthesize findings, and translate insights into clear recommendations for product strategy. This role partners deeply with the Customer Office to support journey mapping and investigate underlying processes and ecosystems to diagnose pain points, root causes, and potential solutions. Your work will help advance Nationwide’s mission to be the most customer-centric protection company and drive innovative products, services, and experiences that protect people, businesses, and futures with extraordinary care. Ideal Candidate The ideal candidate is grounded in design thinking and human-centered design, with proven exper tis e contributing to experience strategy and product development. You bring working knowledge of UX design principles and best practices, prototyping, and agile software development, and you are comfortable collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders and peers . You have deep expertise in multiple research methodologies—especially ethnography, contextual inquiry, and rapid concept testing—and can select the right approach based on learning objectives . You stay current on design patterns, research methods, consumer psychology, and business strategy, and you can clearly influence design solutions that balance user needs and business goals. You are skilled at using storyboards, wireframes, rough screen shots, and other visual aids for concept research and have strong moderation skills for observations and in-depth interviews. You excel at synthesizing qualitative and quantitative data and presenting insights to a wide range of audiences. You build strong, collaborative relationships across teams, manage multiple concurrent projects, and thrive in a fast-paced environment with excellent verbal, written, and project management skills. UX at Nationwide UX at Nationwide is a large, dynamic organization that champions customer-centric solutions and strategic design thinking. Our ~100-person team collaborates across the enterprise in a hybrid/remote environment where design has a strong voice in strategic decision-making and plays a key role in protecting people, businesses, and futures with extraordinary care. Do you shine in at least one core user experience (UX) competency? We have a passion for creating exceptional experiences that have a real impact on people’s live and futures. If you understand the value UX provides in achieving strategic objectives and can articulate that value to cross-functional teams and business partners, we want to know more about you! As a Senior Consultant in the User Experience organization, you’ll be viewed as an expert with the ability to drive the delivery of outstanding customer experiences. In addition to expertise in one core UX strength (experience strategy, research, information architecture, interaction design, interface design, front-end development, content strategy or design operations), you’ll need to demonstrate a thorough grasp of a couple others. It'll be important to have a deep understanding of the design process and an ability to work in ambiguous discovery phase of identifying the right problem to tackle and the detail delivering desirable products. You’ll also have opportunities to lead project teams to distill complex problems into clear solutions that exemplify standard methodologies and encourage others. You are a visionary and will need to be adept at articulating and defending design decisions in a way that can be understood.

Requirements

grounded in design thinking and human-centered design
proven exper tis e contributing to experience strategy and product development
working knowledge of UX design principles and best practices, prototyping, and agile software development
comfortable collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders and peers
deep expertise in multiple research methodologies—especially ethnography, contextual inquiry, and rapid concept testing—and can select the right approach based on learning objectives
stay current on design patterns, research methods, consumer psychology, and business strategy
clearly influence design solutions that balance user needs and business goals
skilled at using storyboards, wireframes, rough screen shots, and other visual aids for concept research
strong moderation skills for observations and in-depth interviews
excel at synthesizing qualitative and quantitative data and presenting insights to a wide range of audiences
build strong, collaborative relationships across teams
manage multiple concurrent projects
thrive in a fast-paced environment with excellent verbal, written, and project management skills
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Comfortable speaking publicly to large groups and explaining design rationale to other parts of the business.
Able to leverage data to make informed design decisions.
Ability to navigate multiple partner groups, tell compelling narratives and influence others.
Owns work with minimal oversight.
Very independent and self-motivated.
Can provide leadership for all aspects of the design process, as well as areas outside field of expertise.
Excellent communications skills (written and verbal).
Clear user experience design focus; proven familiarity with emerging technologies and the ability to integrate new technologies to user experience designs.
Strong interpersonal skills; ability to work effectively independently and in partnership with cross-functional teams .
Proven project management skills; ability to perform well on multiple concurrent projects and meet timelines.
Strong research, analytical, and troubleshooting skills.
Acts as a source of expertise for direction, mentoring and guidance for less experienced team members.
Works with development team to resolve technically complex issues requiring alignment across multiple business partners and subject areas.
Understand and make progress toward the company’s consumer performance indicator (CPI) and key performance indicator (KPI) goals
Undergraduate degree in UX, human-computer interaction, psychology, graphic design, information science, communications or related field preferred.
Typically, eight or more years professionally practicing some aspect of human-centered design.

Responsibilities

Participate in human-centered innovation processes with cross-functional team members.
Collaborate with product managers, designers, researchers, technologists, and business leaders to achieve strong outcomes.
Clearly define the right problems to solve (“the what”) and ensure we design the right end-to-end solutions (“the how”).
Uncover, synthesize, and communicate insights in a compelling way to inform key business decisions.
Connect dots across business units to reduce silos and ensure teams are working collaboratively to deliver a cohesive customer experience across all stages of a journey
Consults and collaborates with stakeholders, product managers, technologists, UX peers and others across the company to provide strategic, creative and technical direction.
Advocates for empathetic, human-centered design.
Helps mitigate risk by pursuing work based on insights and an understanding of our users.
Problem solves, thinks big, influences, and explores divergent ideas while understanding how to converge and build iteratively towards the best solution.
Designs and recommends innovative multi-platform solutions that balance customer needs with business viability and technical feasibility.
Participates in and facilitates idea-generating sessions evaluating those ideas with regards to technical feasibility, business viability and human desirability.
Able to think strategically and connect your work to a larger picture.
Helps everyone consider the end-to-end experience and connect the dots.
Mentors and guides the team in their craft and profession to continually uplift the quality of our work.
Perceive rapid advancements in technology and how customers expect to interact with our company.
May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Benefits

medical/dental/vision
life insurance
short and long term disability coverage
paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date
nine paid holidays
8 hours of Lifetime paid time off
8 hours of Unity Day paid time off
401(k) with company match
company-paid pension plan
business casual attire