Senior Interaction Designer - Public Sector

About Kin + Carta

At Kin + Carta, we work with large, global businesses and organisations that require seamless end-to-end experiences that elevate their brands, products and services and put the user at its heart. 

As part of the team you'll be working on products and services for some of the world’s most influential organisations. UX Researchers through to Product Designers work in dedicated teams, anyone who has worked at a startup or in a product company will feel right at home. We are involved from planning through to execution, being an advocate for the user at every step of the way. You'll help the team to make informed design decisions, placing the needs of the user and the business at the centre of every piece of work.

About you

You’re primarily focused on user-centered design, backed by a broad knowledge of design patterns, iconography, typography and colour theory. You’re concepting and prototyping solutions in response to the problems, ideas and opportunities you help extract from users and partners. You drive your design decisions and rationalise them using research data, design principles, prototypes and the resulting user-testing insights. You’re most effective collaborating with engineers, strategists and other team members to respond to the constraints of any project.

About the role

We're looking for an experienced Senior Interaction Designer to join a multi-disciplinary agile team to help deliver rapid but great-quality experiences for users. 

You’ll play an important role in working with the Design System, identifying patterns, and removing friction from the end-to-end user journey.

You'll also be encouraged and supported in contributing to our Design Practice.

Designers at Kin + Carta are:

• Are skilled at sketching and prototyping in different fidelities, building products used by people every day. 
• Confident using a variety of prototyping tools.
• Are able to work quickly in an agile environment
• Client-facing, supporting the presentation of the team's latest design work.
• Inquisitive and eager to continuously improve and learn.
• Collaborative and ego-free, able to give and receive feedback to and from all team members regardless of role or level.
• Experienced in Agile methodologies, and software development practices.

As an interaction Designer at  Kin + Carta you:

• You’ll work in multidisciplinary teams, alongside researchers and developers, to deliver world-class, user-centered public services
• You know how to design systems for use across multiple services and can identify the simplest approach out of a variety of approaches
• Be able to prototype on paper and in HTML & CSS
• Create and iterate coded prototypes to test and communicate ideas using the GOV.UK prototyping kit
• Very familiar with the GOV.UK Design System and champion the Government design principles 
• Set the design direction and good practice within your teams
• Work with user researchers and front-end developers to turn concepts into user-centered services.
• Use evidence to challenge assumptions, negotiate with product owners and rationalise your design decisions
• Use research and analytics to understand users needs, identify service failures and test different designs
• Champion accessibility and inclusive design across the end-to-end user journey.
• Consider the impact of new technologies and make sure that designs meet accessibility, legal and security requirements
• Are a master of your craft, eager to take on tasks you've not tried before
• Are the gatekeeper for the quality of the products you work on
• Encourage product teams to experiment with new ways of working
• See the big picture and give user/business context for design decisions
• Use past experience and knowledge to spot and resolve problems
• Up for challenging conversations if needed to get to the best product

• Worked extensively in Agile teams
• Previous experience working in the public sector to GDS standards
• Been through one or more Service Assessments
• Experience in creating, managing and versioning prototypes in HTML using GitHub and prototyping kit

Applying for the role

Please share examples of your work as PDFs or online case studies with your application. We’re interested in the activities you go through as you research, test and present your thinking and conclusions. For example; use of data, interviews, workshops, sketches, concepts, flows, experience maps, prototypes etc. ‘Finished’ visual designs are not the only focus here. All supplied examples will be handled in complete confidence.

K+C believes in creating a culture where diversity, regardless of its form, is just a part of who we are. We empower every one of our Kin to share what matters to them, creating a culture where every person, regardless of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status is treated as a valued member of K+C.

Here’s what to expect from the interview process at Kin + Carta: 

Intro Call with the Talent Team (30 mins) – If your skills and experience match the role requirements, our Talent team will contact you to arrange a call.  The aim of this call is to get to know you and for you to find out more about Kin + Carta. This call can be held either by telephone or Zoom. After this call, if we feel like you are a good match for the role, you’ll be invited to a first-stage interview.

First-Stage Interview (60 minutes) - This will typically be a Q&A style interview via Zoom with two of our senior design team members. The interview will last approximately 60 minutes. This process is designed to help our team find out about your skills and experience but also what you enjoy and what motivates you. You will be asked to bring along a sample of work that you are proud of to this interview. It’s a great opportunity for you to ask our team questions and learn more about us! If you are successful in the first stage interview, you will progress to the next stage of our interview process. 

Second-Stage Interview (60 minutes)- This interview will also be a Q&A style interview via Zoom this time with two of our senior leaders. The interview will last approximately 60 minutes. It’s a chance for our team to see how you apply your skills and experience and assess how that matches our expectations for the role. It’s also a chance for you to meet more of our Kin (that’s what we call our colleagues here at Kin + Carta).

Making a Decision - Following the interview process, our hiring team will get together to discuss feedback and make a final decision. We aim to get back to you as soon as we possibly can! 

Our average recruitment process takes around four weeks. You will be assigned a dedicated member of our Talent team  to support you throughout the process. 

We will always do our best to accommodate any reasonable adjustment requests. Please just let us know how we can make the interview process more accessible for you.

Here at Kin + Carta, we believe in building a better and more welcoming world for everyone. We want you to know that whoever you are, wherever you’re from, and whoever you love, you are welcome at Kin + Carta. We put our commitment to our global IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Awareness) programme at the centre of everything we do. We’re also a certified B Corp, which means we are committed to being a force for good and operate to the highest social and environmental performance standards.