Director of User Experience

Character Lab is looking for a Director of User Experience. Reporting to the COO, Dr. Sean Talamas, the Director of User Experience will lead user research, user interface design, and product management for Character Lab Research Network’s digital platform. This is an exciting opportunity for a user-centered, innovative professional to have strategic impact by ensuring our Qualtrics-built digital platform meets the needs and expectations of our diverse users, including students, teachers, school administrators, and academic researchers. We believe our goal - to advance the science and practice of character development - cannot be reached without seamless interaction design grounded in deep empathy for each of these audiences.

Our digital platform is hosted by Qualtrics, and combines standard Qualtrics products with custom products designed in collaboration with and developed by Qualtrics’ engineering services teams. This unique combination of technology allows Character Lab Research Network to facilitate character development research activities at our partner schools in a convenient and secure online format.

The Director of User Experience will define and oversee the design process of our digital platform, manage a team of UX researchers and product managers, execute end-t0-end user-centered design process along with other internal goals, develop product roadmaps, maintain relationships with key external partners such as Qualtrics, lead projects to improve the UX of our existing offering, and spearhead new directions which address unmet user needs.

Responsibilities

• Lead UX / UI process for the organization

• Translate business objectives into well-considered, lean design projects

• Translate user research into actionable insights which are easy to understand

• Take a disciplined, data-driven approach to prioritizing UX research and design work

• Manage and guide research activities to identify opportunity, insights, and pain points

• Manage and guide design activities to create winning solutions to key problems

• Manage Character Lab’s long-term product roadmap across our various offerings

• Work with a cross-functional, diverse team to achieve UX goals within constraints set by organizational objectives, research objectives, school objectives

• Continuously monitor analytics of our platform in the wild and point out new opportunities to better understand or improve UX

• Work collaboratively with vendors to ensure seamless UX within technical constraints

• Help create a culture of innovation through cycles of iterative learning and ideation

• Advocate for students, teachers, school administrators, and academic researchers

• Facilitate collaborative workshops which bring the team together to handle complexity

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and 6-8+ years of professional experience in user research, user interface design, user experience, product management, or related fields/disciplines

• A scientific background or background in EdTech is a plus

• Track record of user-first advocacy in complex projects which include other interests

• Expert understanding of design patterns and best practices on mobile and web

• Experience managing product roadmaps and product development cycles

• Experience engaging stakeholders and getting buy-in on user-centered approaches

• Experience leading and managing UX researchers, designers, and product managers

• Natural facilitator who leads meetings to productive, collaborative outcomes

• Deep understanding of how to apply lean UX research methods on quick timelines

• Strategic thinker who isn’t afraid to get tactical when needed

• Proactive organizational skills lead to disciplined project management

• Comfort leading a dynamic, diverse startup to rapidly iterate, build, test, and launch

• Fierce work ethic and a sense of purpose which aligns with Character Lab’s mission