User Research Lead

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 262496**Salary**:

- £52,359 - £65,103**Job grade**:

- Grade 7- C1**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- RoS - Business Development & Information - Service Design**Type of role**:

- Business Management and Improvement**Working pattern**:

- Full-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Hybrid - Contractual base can be Meadowbank House, Edinburgh, EH8 7AU and/or Saint Vincent Plaza, Glasgow, G2 5LDAbout the job

**Job summary**:

- As the Lead User Researcher, you will be responsible for the user research community of practice and provide leadership to the team of permanent and contingent workers. You will champion Scottish Government standards such as the Digital Scotland Service Standards (DSSS) with your peers and wider in RoS.
- By sharing your experience, you will help others be successful in DSSS assessments. You will be responsible for creating a ‘research ops’ culture, where all best practice / data protection is embedded into the teams’ ways of working. You will champion accessibility and usability as principles RoS should embrace, signposting to experts when needed and line manage user research colleagues and identify & deliver a learning pathway for the most junior roles.
- Capacity planning with the Head of User Centred Design is an important aspect of the role, along with recruitment for the teams.**Job description**:

- Your main duties will include:
**Strategic**
- Ensure that the User Research (UR) team, and external suppliers create experiences that:
**o Meet user needs**

**o Are simple to use**

**o Are accessible to all users**

**o Are consistent to Scottish Government Digital Service Standard**

**o Are platform universal**
- Understand organisational goals and challenges and align research activities across teams to inform policy and proposition.
- Build relationships and work effectively with external parties, for example legal firms, lenders, citizens, and Scottish Government.

**Process**
- Work to ensure that a coherent, consistent experience is given to all Ros customers, internal and external.
- When required, support the UR & SD teams in creating prototypes and design patterns that bring the digital programme vision to life, complete with customer journeys.
- Provide clear usability and accessibility deliverables for the UX team, ensuring that UR is part of the delivery process of all domains.
- Ensure the UR team are providing clear guidance and support for the development teams to implement usable and accessible systems for internal and external users.

**People**
- Line Manage the UR team (permanent staff and direct contingent workers).
- Capacity planning for the UR team, identifying the need for contingent workers.
- Nurture and develop permanent members of staff
- identify skills gaps and training areas and provide career growth for less experienced or junior researchers.

**Person specification**:
**Thinking Wider**
- You understand organisational goals and challenges and align research activities across teams to inform policy and product.
- You enable an organisation to adopt a wide range of user research methods and lead a community of practice with an aim to continually assure, improve, and innovate user research.

**Changing and Improving/Analysis & Making Effective Decisions**
- You know how to help an organisation continually assure, improve and innovate their practices to generate clear and valuable findings.
- You help teams understand the ways that digital technology is changing user behaviour, and the challenges and opportunities for design and delivery of government services.
- You assist an organisation to adopt a wide range of analysis and synthesis techniques.

**Leading and Communicating/Building Capability for All**
- You lead others to make good design decisions and mentor them through pairing and role modelling, sharing best practice and coaching others.
- You’re able to manage a team comprised of individuals with differing roles within a research and design team.

**Collaborating and Partnering**
- You listen to the needs of the technical and business stakeholders and interpret between them.
- You manage stakeholders’ expectations by being flexible and are capable of proactive and reactive communication.
- You facilitate difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders, across different digital disciplines.
- You understand and have experience of a range of user-centred practices and can help inexperienced teams adopt them and embed them into their agile workflow, advocating user research and engaging sceptical colleagues and stakeholders.

**Delivering a Quality Service**
- You help teams understand the diversity of users of government services and know how to include all kinds of users in appropriate research activities.

You’re an advocate for inclusive practices and help teams