Senior UX/UI Designer (Term)

Vanderbilt University - Nashville, TN

Full-time - Mid Level

Remote - Nashville, TN

Educational Services

About the position

The Senior UX/UI Designer is a term-limited position that is part of the Digital Strategies team within the Communications and Marketing department at Vanderbilt University. This role is responsible for creating holistic user experiences and user interfaces for university-wide digital products. The designer will work closely with development, content strategy, and project management to achieve design solutions that align with the university's strategic goals, brand standards, technical needs, and usability best practices. The position requires collaboration with stakeholders across the university to translate strategic marketing and communication goals, research, and discovery into end products that achieve results. The Senior UX/UI Designer will utilize a keen eye for typography, layout, and color to interpret or enhance the university's design system into cohesive digital experiences that align with usability best practices and trends. Proficiency in understanding interactivity, functionality, accessibility, and screen responsiveness is essential, along with experience working closely with developers or engineers to implement designs in a WordPress environment. The goals of this position include delighting users, promoting engagement, and encouraging desired actions that achieve KPIs with the university's core audiences, including prospective students, alumni, faculty, external academic thought leaders, and athletics fans. This position reports directly to the Director of UX/UI and does not have supervisory responsibilities. The role requires occasional in-person attendance on the Vanderbilt University campus, with the option to work in-person more frequently if desired. The Digital Strategies team is composed of expert designers, content strategists, web developers, and project managers, all dedicated to creating and enabling digital experiences that showcase the excellence of the Vanderbilt community. The Communications and Marketing team serves as the institution-wide center of excellence for communications and marketing, developing strategies that inform, engage, and inspire participation in Vanderbilt University's global academic and research mission.

Responsibilities

• Help evolve the Vanderbilt design system and drive its adoption through a university-wide migration project and stakeholder enablement initiative.
• Design digital experiences that translate research, discovery, and strategy while meeting university and stakeholder objectives.
• Own all aspects of the design process for digital experiences including wireframing, mockups, high fidelity designs, prototyping, and hand-off to developers.
• Demonstrate a high level of comfort with HTML/CSS and WordPress and a familiarity with Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Miro, and other relevant tools.
• Oversee the implementation of solutions from design mockups to the final QA process, working closely with developers and project managers.
• Be a strong advocate for the end-user while influencing and addressing the expectations of key business stakeholders.
• Partner with content strategists, developers, analysts, and agencies to bring digital experiences to life with innovative, on-brand design solutions.
• Align digital content with mobile apps and other channels to promote optimal user experiences.
• Be an advocate for designs that achieve accessibility standards and device responsiveness.
• Efficiently and effectively manage multiple, complex, and results-oriented projects with both quick turn-around requirements and long lead times.
• Think creatively and pragmatically with a willingness to consider many options, problem solve and take directives as necessary.
• Serve as a self-motivated, self-critical, open-minded, creative, and engaged colleague interested in working in a collaborative and communicative environment.
• Demonstrate excellence in news judgment, written communications, and presentation skills with the ability to present creative rationales.
• Adhere to confidentiality and business ethics.
• Demonstrate understanding of the university's mission, values, goals, and priorities and an ability to ensure that all are considered when executing work.
• Operate in a highly organized fashion with attention to detail on all projects.
• Provide overall support as needed and assigned for department priorities.
• Perform other relevant duties as assigned.

Requirements

• A High School diploma or equivalent is necessary and a Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution of higher education is preferred.
• 3-5 years of related work experience in UX/UI design is necessary.
• Proficiency in Figma is necessary, knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, Miro, and Sketch, and user research tools such as Hotjar, Google Analytics, and Userlytics or equivalent is preferred.
• Adept in all aspects of visual design with a portfolio of previous work that demonstrates expertise is necessary.
• Experience working with and evolving design systems and pattern libraries is necessary.
• Experience working closely with developers to interpret designs is necessary.
• Familiarity with HTML/CSS and WordPress is necessary.
• Thorough working knowledge of the full suite of Microsoft Office products is necessary.

Nice-to-haves

• Knowledge of user research tools such as Hotjar, Google Analytics, and Userlytics or equivalent is preferred.
• Experience with Sketch is preferred.

Benefits

• Health insurance coverage
• Dental insurance coverage
• Vision insurance coverage
• 401k retirement savings plan
• Flexible scheduling options
• Professional development opportunities
• Paid holidays
• Paid time off for volunteering activities
• Employee discount programs
• Wellness programs