Senior UI/UX Designer

Position Title :

Senior UI / UX Designer

Position Type : Regular

Regular

Hiring Range :

$96,600 - $113,600 annually; commensurate with experience

Pay Frequency : Annual

Annual

Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit Catholic University in the epicenter of Silicon Valley, infusing ethics and social consciousness into a rigorous cross-disciplinary education for its nearly 9,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Ranked among the top 15 percent of national universities by U.S. News & World Report, SCU has among the best four-year graduation rates in the nation and is rated by PayScale in the top 1 percent of universities with the highest-paid graduates.

SCU has produced elite levels of Fulbright Scholars as well as four Rhodes Scholars. With undergraduate programs in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, and graduate programs in six disciplines, the curriculum blends high-tech innovation with social consciousness grounded in the tradition of Jesuit, Catholic education.

The University Marketing and Communications (UMC) Division is tasked with strategically communicating SCU's differentiation and brand across channels that include social media, web, earned media, the alumni magazine, and other digital and print platforms, as well as increasing the University's brand visibility, enhancing its reputation, and communicating its differentiation and value among our key audiences.

Position Description

Reporting to the Director of Digital Strategy, University Marketing and Communications, the UI / UX Designer is an exciting and rewarding opportunity to create, define, and envision Santa Clara’s user experience online, raising the bar for 13 million site visitors a year and leading design decisions for 749 diverse employees who manage digital properties across multiple departments.

The designer will establish themselves with greater creativity, impact, and exposure to leadership in this inaugural role.

As a versatile and organized creative professional, the designer translates complex requirements into effective, responsive, and technology-integrated digital experiences.

The designer provides research and data-driven interface design system solutions that ensure user needs, business goals, and quality assurance.

This includes assessing content design and information architecture, labeling content and structuring sitemaps.

The designer works closely with stakeholders and end-users to understand their needs and pain points to design intuitive, visually appealing, and structured interfaces.

They build, continuously update and cultivate relationships with a network of employees and vendors. They observe more than 1,000 support / feature requests a year and analyze feedback to enhance the university component library, documentation, and client knowledge.

They pioneer their design approach, reconcile feedback from various stakeholders, and ensure SCU’s digital experience aligns with its mission, vision, values, brand, reputation, and strategic goals.

The designer works side-by-side with a front-end web developer and will gain a deep understanding of web accessibility compliance, CSS frameworks, web application integrations, and data analytics.

They receive direction and feedback from the Art Director to adhere to university brand standards and visual identity. A design thinker, the UI / UX designer is dedicated to their craft, patiently uncovers user and stakeholder needs, tests ideas, and iterates on their designs.

The best candidate will be a problem-solver, critical thinker, and communicator who is genuinely curious and enjoys gathering a large amount of information relevant to a problem.

Job Responsibilities

Leadership

• Lead design and development and play a pivotal role in shaping our digital presence.
• Foster a collaborative and creative design environment, working closely with cross-functional teams.
• Lead and manage UI design work in conceptualizing, creating, and implementing stunning user interfaces for web websites, applications, and more.
• Communicates process, design rationale, research findings, and conceptual ideas visually and verbally to both internal and external stakeholders to build trust and buy-in.
• Promotes UX design best practices and contributes to writing design guidelines, training material, and documentation that ensures accurate use of designs.
• Produces on-brand visual design specs with detailed requirements and delegates designs to front and back-end developers.
• Monitors, evaluates and provides feedback on the code development and mobile responsiveness of their designs, and works closely with cross-functional members to take actions necessary for quality assurance.
• Contributes to task tracking, status updates, project management, and the production process.

Research, Analytics, and Strategy

• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to uncover user needs, stakeholder objectives, technology capabilities, and infrastructure constraints to define design strategy.
• Conduct user research and usability testing to gain insights and identify opportunities and challenges.
• Evaluates and reports on website data (end-user sessions, content type usage, accessibility reports) to promote the ROI of user-centered design efforts.

UI Design

• Advocates for the user through human-centered design methods, ensuring our platforms, systems, and services serve their needs and use cases.
• Designs at scale through the university’s style guide and UI content type library; reduces redundancies, creates a shared language, and ensures adoption and visual consistency across platforms and devices.
• Creates various design deliverables including low and high-fidelity comps, design specs, and prototypes.
• Communicates interaction and interface design ideas by creating wireframes, user flows, personas, and usage scenarios.

Content and UX Design

• Plays a key role in the design lifecycle, including quality assurance testing and compliance with accessibility standards (WCAG).
• Supports content design, periodically writes copy, and often selects and optimizes media assets.
• Performs content inventories and audits to diagnose issues with existing UI constraints; connects content strategy and information architecture to thoughtful design.

Other Duties as Assigned

Provides Work Direction

• Supervises, trains and mentors student employees, including timesheet approvals.
• Drafts job descriptions for positions held by student employees.
• Posts job openings on Workday, conducts interviews and selection of student employees.

General Guidelines

• Recommends initiatives and implements changes to improve quality and services.
• Identifies and determines causes of problems; develops and presents recommendations for improvement of established processes and practices.
• Maintains contact with internal and external stakeholders and solicits feedback for improved services.
• Maximizes productivity through use of appropriate tools; planned training and performance initiatives.
• Researches and develops resources that create timely and efficient workflow.
• Prepares progress reports; informs supervisor of project status and deviation from goals. Ensures completeness, accuracy, and timeliness of all operational functions.
• Prepares and submits reports as requested and required.
• Develops and implements guidelines to support the functions of the unit.

Qualifications

This position requires the ability to effectively establish and maintain cooperative working relationships within a diverse, multicultural environment.

Experience and Skill Set

Knowledge

• Understanding and appreciation of the vision and values of a Jesuit Catholic educational mission.
• Demonstrable knowledge of web and interface design and its associated design tools, along with a solid understanding of web standards and best practices.
• Strong understanding of UI and visual design principles as they pertain to websites, apps, and systems, including translating user research findings into functional requirements and developing functional specifications.
• Strong knowledge of graphic design : typography, color theory, whitespace, layout, pattern, hierarchy, etc.
• Knowledge of the web design and development process, HTML structure, CSS frameworks, Javascript, systems, libraries, mobile, and responsive design.
• Experience in photo editing and file optimization.
• Familiarity with making websites accessible (WCAG / AA guidelines), cross-browser compatibility, and optimization techniques for page performance and SEO.
• Experience combining research findings to create personas, use cases, and journeys.
• Knowledge of project management practices, tools, and methods.
• Knowledge of website analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics, SiteImprove).

Skills

• Thorough experience designing, prototyping, and mapping in software programs and web applications such as Figma, Sketch, Zeplin, MindMeister, Illustrator, and Photoshop.
• Excellent communication, problem-solving, and time-management skills.
• Experience leading design thinking sessions, design reviews, and presenting designs.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; attention to detail and a high degree of openness to new approaches and new ideas.
• Experience outlining requirements and prioritizing design deliverables.
• Skilled in sketching, wireframing, creating mockups, and evaluating interaction design.
• Skilled in front-end integrations and frameworks, along with HTML and CSS coding abilities.

Abilities

• Strong ability to supervise, assign, and prioritize; work on multiple projects with opposing target dates and priorities within the organization.
• Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships within a diverse, multicultural environment.
• Ability to understand large information systems and practice IA and content design.
• Ability to share designs and ideas, receive feedback, and implement meaningful changes.
• Ability to design solutions while adhering to brand guidelines and technical specs.
• Ability to stay up-to-date with the evolving digital landscape, emerging UI / UX trends, and share knowledge with the team.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and appropriately handle sensitive communications with employees and external agencies.

Education / Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in design field or equivalent required.
• Eight years of professional experience in web or UI / UX design.
• Work samples demonstrating experience in UX methods, visual design, and / or building a component library.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described below are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended, the California Fair Employment & Housing Act, and all other applicable laws, SCU provides reasonable accommodations for qualified persons with disabilities.

A qualified individual is a person who meets skill, experience, education, or other requirements of the position and who can perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.

• Considerable time is spent at a desk using a computer.
• May be required to travel to other buildings on the campus.
• May at times, require physical labor.
• Will have periodic evening and weekend responsibilities for website and product launches, system updates, and university emergency communication needs.
• May occasionally travel to outside customers, vendors, and suppliers - must have a valid driver's license.
• May be required to attend conferences and training sessions within the Bay Area or out-of-state locations.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described below are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.

• Typical office environment.
• Mostly an indoor office environment.
• Offices with equipment noise (office printers).
• Offices with frequent interruptions.
• UMC has a hybrid work schedule with the potential to be fully remote.

COVID-19 Statement

The health and safety of the university community is a top priority. All Santa Clara University students, and employees are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or request a medical or religious exemption.

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