User Experience Designer

Description

Yale University offers exciting opportunities for achievement and growth in New Haven, Connecticut.  Conveniently located between Boston and New York, New Haven is the creative capital of Connecticut with cultural resources that include two major art museums, a critically-acclaimed repertory theater, state-of-the-art concert hall, and world-renowned schools of Architecture, Art, Drama, and Music.

Position Focus:  This position designs both the visual appearance and the user experience for rich-client, web-based projects at the Yale Digital Humanities Lab. The successful candidate will use expertise in web design, interactive design, user experience and related fields to craft the look and the feel of DHLab online deliverables. The person works independently to capture requirements from project leaders in an ongoing and iterative process: defining the particular user experience and visual design that meets each project’s goals, creating conceptual wireframes and/or prototypes, and conceiving the layouts, visual elements, and graphic treatments.

The position has sole responsibility for the logical flow and interactive design of DHLab projects. The position uses experience with process workflow and the user interface logic to make complex projects intuitive and usable by lay and expert audiences alike. The UX Designer uses their expertise in wireframe tools to produce mockups, and uses their knowledge of multiple potential user audiences (on-campus and off-campus) to ensure effective visual and interactive designs. After deployment, the UX Designer collaborates with the project leaders and other staff on formal and informal usability testing. Based on results from this usability testing, the person refines the process workflow and user interface logic to incorporate the lessons learned from real-world use.

This position also has sole responsibility for the design, branding, color palette, and overall visual theme of DHLab projects. The UX Designer produces multiple visual mockups in graphic design tools to present design alternatives for client consideration. The role implements the selected visual design using HTML/CSS and web frameworks such as Bootstrap3. Working alongside the Programmer/Analyst, the UX Designer works within interactive capabilities of HTML5, AJAX, JavaScript, jQuery, and similar technologies to deliver dynamic projects that allow users to manipulate humanities data online.
The position reports to the Director of the DHLab and creates and maintains effective working relationships across the Yale Library system and the University as a whole.

Required Education, Skills and Experience:
• Bachelor's degree in a related field and four years of related work experience or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Strong interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to work as part of collaborative teams. Ability to communicate effectively with faculty, students and staff.
• Demonstrated project management experience, including managing multiple priorities. Ability to participate in, and lead, the iterative discovery of project requirements and the organization of those requirements into logical project phases.
• Interest in and/or experience with digital humanities and cultural heritage projects such as crowd-sourced transcription systems, digital mapping projects, etc.
• Demonstrated ability to produce potential website layouts, user interfaces and organizational strategies using wireframe tools.
• Demonstrated ability to build and manage functional, dynamic web-based systems, including design, coding, and support for responsive/adaptive design. Expert ability in working with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Demonstrated ability to work on projects that use programming languages to generate HTML.

Preferred Education, Skills and Experience:  Master’s degree in human-computer interaction, interaction design, information science or similar.  Previous experience in digital humanities, academic technology, academic libraries, or similar.

The University and the Library
The Yale University Library, as one of the world's leading research libraries, collects, organizes, preserves, and provides access to and services for a rich and unique record of human thought and creativity. It fosters intellectual growth and supports the teaching and research missions of Yale University and scholarly communities worldwide. A distinctive strength is its rich spectrum of resources, including around 12.8 million volumes and information in all media, ranging from ancient papyri to early printed books to electronic databases. The Library is engaging in numerous projects to expand access to its physical and digital collections. Housed in eighteen buildings including the Sterling Memorial Library, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Bass Library, it employs a dynamic and diverse staff of approximately five hundred who offer innovative and flexible services to library readers.  For additional information on the Yale University Library, please visit the Library's web site at www.library.yale.edu.

Salary and Benefits:
We invite you to discover the excitement, diversity, rewards and excellence of a career at Yale University. One of the country's great workplaces, Yale University offers exciting opportunities for meaningful accomplishment and true growth. Our benefits package is among the best anywhere, with a wide variety of insurance choices, liberal paid time off, fantastic family and educational benefits, a variety of retirement benefits, extensive recreational facilities, and much more.

How to apply:  Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.  Applications, consisting of a cover letter, resume, and the names and contact information of three professional references should be submitted by applying online at http://www.yale.edu/jobs. The STARS req. ID for this position is 29312BR.  Please be sure to reference 29312BR in your cover letter.

Yale University considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.