Interaction Designer

On behalf of DWP we are looking for an Interaction Designer for a 12 month (Inside IR35) contract. Hybrid working with 3 days per week required in either Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy. As the UK's biggest public service department, it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers. As such, we operate on a scale that is almost unmatched anywhere in Europe and most people in Britain come into contact with us at some point in their lives.

Working with DWP, you will be helping us to drive our priorities to:

* Help people to move into work and support those already in work to progress, with the aim of increasing overall workforce participation

* Help people to plan and save for later life, while providing a safety net for those who need it now

* Provide effective, efficient, and innovative services to the millions of claimants who rely on us every day, including the most vulnerable in society

* Improve experience of our services while maximising value for money for the taxpayer.

As an Interaction Designer you will work across the team, owning the delivery of artefacts and supporting interaction design. You will work alongside researchers and developers to deliver services, products and tools which fulfil user needs. You will have a strong understanding of all the elements of interaction design and experience of working in multidisciplinary teams. You will have a solid technical understanding and be comfortable delivering prototypes. Your focus will be on fulfilling user needs and understanding user journeys, using prototypes to do so. You will be interested in developing the design practice and will be comfortable managing small teams whilst also feeding into the larger team.

As an Interaction Designer your main responsibilities will be to:

* Understand user needs and designs services, products and tools to meet them.

* Create and iterate prototypes to test and communicate ideas and help the wider team learn about user needs.

* Liaise with a multidisciplinary team in an agile environment to turn concepts into user-centred designs.

* Understand as-is interaction design and identify improvement opportunities.

* Use typography and affordance to improve user experience.

* Ensure that the design of services is consistent, both internally and with the rest of the wider organisation.

* Deliver best practices around user-centred design processes, user research and experience design.

* Identify and understand constraints and able to work within them.

* Work across both digital and non-digital platforms to create the best possible user experience.

Essential:

* Experience of GDS principles.

* Experience of sketching, prototyping and iterative design.

* Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team.

* Experience of using a user-centred design approach.

* Experience of explaining design decisions and communicating ideas clearly.

* Experience of working at pace in an agile environment.

Desirable:

* Experience of interaction development for Apps would be advantageous.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".