UX Specialist -Product Designer (Temporary)

University of Washington Medical Center • Seattle, WA

15d • $96,000 - $100,536

About The Position

The University of Washington’s Office of Research is hiring a UX Specialist - Product Designer for a 1-year temporary term appointment, with the opportunity to renew. Reporting to the Technology Project Manager, the position contributes user-centered research and interaction design to the Office of Research’s software portfolio. The work spans formative research and ideation through interaction design, user testing, and system assessment. The specialist brings a broad human-centered design skill set to understanding user and business needs and helps ensure that system implementations are useful, usable, accessible, and clear within the University’s complex research enterprise.

The specialist advocates for users and user-centered design, helping ensure systems throughout the research lifecycle support effective, efficient, and accessible administration of research projects. Depending on specialty, the role leads product interaction and visual design or primary user research, while also contributing to research and design activities across products. The position works collaboratively with developers, website team members, business analysts, project managers, editors, quality assurance, support staff, and other partners in a shared-space teamwork environment using meetings and synchronous and asynchronous communication tools.

The position is primarily expected to work standard hours aligned with the Pacific Time zone. Non-standard or off-hours work may be necessary for go-lives, incidents, and other deployments. The role is a 100% FTE, first-shift position. The annual pay range is $96,000–$100,536.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Human Centered Design & Engineering, Informatics, Psychology, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• At least 3 years of progressively responsible UX design and/or UX research experience for web or application products, including work on cross-functional agile teams.
• Experience facilitating user sessions such as formative interviews, observation or contextual inquiry, card sorts, evaluative interviews, usability testing, and co-design sessions.
• Demonstrated competence in survey design, including writing unbiased questions and matching response data to appropriate analytical methods.
• Broad working knowledge of user-centered design processes and tools, with the ability to select techniques based on product goals and constraints.
• Ability to translate complex requirements, policies, and workflows into clear design artifacts such as flows, wireframes, and prototypes.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, including explaining complex ideas clearly to technical and non-technical audiences through visual, verbal, and written communication.
• Strong online portfolio or body of work demonstrating user-centered process, design or research craft, and impact on shipped products or services.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with one or more enterprise-scale system implementations or transitions.
• Experience with technology for research administration, higher education, sponsored public sector projects, budgeting and financial management, or similar complex domains.
• Ability to independently conduct intermediate-level quantitative data analysis to answer product and user research questions, using tools such as Excel or Power BI.
• Skill in UX research planning, including selecting study and analysis methods, responding to product development constraints, and scoping activities to meet pressing needs.
• Experience working with and presenting to strategic leadership.
• Comfort with prototyping and vibecoding tools, such as Figma and generative AI tools, and ability to quickly create useful proof-of-concept prototypes from sketches and ideation.
• Experience designing mobile and multi-device experiences and familiarity with responsive and adaptive design patterns.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining design systems, UI component libraries, or pattern libraries.

Responsibilities

• Conduct UX research—including interviews, surveys, usability testing, and focus groups—in an agile product development environment.
• Write clear UX research reports describing research activities, analysis, findings, and design recommendations.
• Work with analysts and senior designers to use quantitative data, such as web analytics, surveys, and support trends, to inform design decisions and define, monitor, and refine UX success measures.
• Partner with product managers and business analysts to synthesize research, analytics, and stakeholder input into scoped features and user stories reflecting user needs, policy requirements, and product strategy.
• Create design artifacts such as user journeys, information architectures, user-flow diagrams, and storyboards.
• Build or modify low- and mid-fidelity prototypes, refine prototypes to communicate design intent, and use them to test functionality with users.
• Participate in stakeholder demonstrations, solicit unbiased feedback, facilitate focused discussion, and generate actionable findings.
• Participate in design critiques, incorporate feedback, and provide actionable critique of others’ work.
• Collaborate with technical contributors and facilitate working sessions to assess design feasibility and cost-effectiveness.
• Evaluate application systems against WCAG accessibility guidelines and inclusive-design best practices, and recommend actionable remediation.
• For the UX Design Specialist area: lead interaction and visual design; translate complex workflows, policies, and data into detailed prototypes; maintain information architecture, navigation, and content hierarchies; contribute to the ORIS design system; apply accessibility practices in design specifications; and conduct heuristic evaluations.
• For the UX Research Specialist area: lead primary research planning and execution, including research questions, method selection, study design, participant recruitment and scheduling, and session moderation; analyze qualitative and quantitative data; and maintain the ORIS UX Research repository and promote use of its insights.
• Design and facilitate collaborative workshops, including discovery sessions, co-design activities, and prioritization exercises.
• Present design concepts, research findings, and recommendations to diverse audiences, adapting communication to stakeholders’ needs.
• Partner with product, BA, and CX teams to create communications, demonstrations, and training materials supporting campus end-user understanding and adoption.
• Advise business units and project teams on articulating user problems and opportunities and aligning proposed solutions with ORIS product strategy and design vision.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of UX and product development processes, tools, and practices, including communities of practice and cross-team initiatives.
• Perform other related responsibilities as needed, and keep current with product, design, and technology trends, suggesting new ways of working.

Benefits

• Benefits are available; the posting directs applicants to the University of Washington benefits information for temporary, per-diem, and less-than-half-time positions.
• Opportunities for professional growth.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level