Job Description
Designer, UX
Remote
Full time
R1236
How You’ll Contribute
At National Geographic, we believe in the power of science, exploration, education and storytelling to change the world. The UX Designer will play an important role in bringing this vision to life in support of current and future digital and mobile initiatives at the Society. We create engaged and impactful relationships with our various stakeholder communities, including Explorers, Educators and Students, and Key Influencers (Foundations, Policy Makers, Donors, etc.) across website, mobile and social channels.
The UX Designer combines strong IA, User Research, and Product Design skills to both enhance existing NGS digital products and storytelling experiences, while also innovating towards new, cutting-edge experiences. Using the principles of Lean Agile, Design Thinking, and Atomic Design, he/she will collaborate closely with Product, Technology, Content, and all business units to directly contribute towards NGS’s mission to change the world. As a key, cross-functional member of the NGS Digital Team, the UX Designer will own design projects that range from improving a holistic design system, to designing impact storytelling templates, to creating map-based web and native apps.
The UX Designer will utilize user-centered design to achieve our goals. He/she will be an energetic player/coach and help product/content teams conceive experiences by analyzing surveys and other data and synthesizing it visually into IA, User Flows, and wireframe design solutions. Working closely with our engineering teams, he/she will use Agile user testing to constantly test, learn, and iterate to success.
Your Impact
Responsibilities
- Provide IA solutions for the constantly evolving and expanding NGS website with an eye toward driving engagement for NGS targeted audiences and achieving overall NGS digital goals (20%)
- Design User Flows and wireframes at the discovery level for both Digital Products and Editorial Experiences (20%)
- Collaborate with Product Designers and Engineers to create world-class prototypes, web apps, and digital products along with business stakeholders, including Marketing, Grants, Programs, Development, Events, and Education. Utilize insights and analytics to test, optimize and iterate. (20%)
- Create test scripts and plans for both IA and Prototypes, then conduct tests and write summary reports (20%)
- Get to know our main audiences – Educators, Explorers, and Influencers – and tirelessly advocate for them (10%)
- Keep up with current trends and best practices in marketplace. (10%)
Minimum Education Required
3 + years of experience. Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in graphic, UX, HCI, or web design.
Knowledge and Skills Required
- The NGS Digital Design team requires the ability to innovate and think in systems simultaneously. The UX Designer will balance consistency with customization, reusability with diversity. While staying true to the highly visual identity that is central to the National Geographic brand, he/she will use data and user feedback to ensure that the UX is always intuitive, usable, and effective to the product’s KPIs.
- Solid understanding of Atomic Design or Modular Design principles
- Demonstrable understanding of IA best practices
- Demonstrable understanding of UX design best practices
- Demonstrable understanding of responsive / mobile design
- Pro-active self-starter with a “can do” approach to problem solving who thrives with hard challenges and approaches problems with a data-driven mindset
- Must be a team-oriented individual, energetic, result & delivery oriented, with a keen interest on quality and the ability to meet deadlines
- Passion for optimizing user experience and maximizing engagement among target audiences
- Effective communication skills, especially with developers
- Strong presentation skills to business stakeholders
- Prototyping experience using Invision, Axure, or similar tools
- JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
- Omnigraffle (or equivalent), Sketch and Adobe CC
- A/B testing, Qualitative User Testing
- Lean UX, Agile methodology
- Expert ability to understand and visualize multiple scenarios and user states simultaneously.
- Expert-level online portfolio that includes site maps, user flows, and hi-fidelity wireframes
- Experience working in an agile development methodology
- Experience working with offshore development teams a plus
- Experience working in either media or non profit sectors is a plus
Supervision
No direct report.
Salary Information
As a leading nonprofit organization, National Geographic Society offers competitive salary and total rewards to attract, develop, and retain an innovative and dynamic workforce.
The salary range for this position starts at $87,000.
Job Designation
Remote – Our Remote designation continues to require that staff work in another location in the U.S. or abroad, such as our regional leads for our Education and International teams or regional fundraisers in Advancement. Staff may also be designated as Remote by their supervisors (with approval by the Senior Team lead) because of their duties or personal circumstances, and are afforded this status when it is beneficial to NGS, their respective team, and the employee.
We encourage you to apply even if your experience is not a 100% match with the position. We are looking for someone with relevant skills and experience, not a checklist that exactly matches the job description. We want to help you grow and in return, you help us grow into a stronger, more inclusive organization.
