Lead Service Designer
c. £70,000 per annum
Bedford Based (occasional travel to London)
Hybrid Working
Permanent
As Lead Service Designer at Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), you will be responsible for improving engagement, customer satisfaction and ultimately the financial wellbeing of millions of people across the UK, particularly those with vulnerabilities.
You will have the chance to be a practitioner and leader, responsible for planning and leading the end-to-end design of services as well as providing guidance and oversight to designers and researchers from our Digital Delivery Partner.
You will also collaborate with the other design and product leads to define and build the practice of user-centred design at MaPS and align our services and ways of working with the GDS Service Standard. Your leadership and design skills will help MaPS achieve our mission of helping everyone in the UK make the most of their money and pensions.
In this role you will be responsible for the following;
- Leading collaborative design processes for multiple complex projects.
- Planning and leading workshops, reviews, critiques and handovers.
- Collaborating with cross-functional teams to shape and communicate the vision and outcomes for omni-channel financial guidance journeys.
- Working with colleagues inside and outside MaPS to understand and reimagine the full customer journey, including how it intersects with other public-, charity- and private-sector services.
- Working with other UCD leads to develop and champion the UCD practice within MaPS.
- Building UCD capacity across the organisation by sharing insights, principles and best practices with non-designers.
- Mentoring junior colleagues and communicating with designers and researchers on other programmes to avoid duplication, maximise learning and ensure the coherence and consistency of MaPS services.
- Identifying, understanding and mitigating ways design decisions and processes may negatively impact users.
- Working with Interaction Designers, Business Analysts, User Researchers, Policy and Proposition Managers, Product Owners, and Service Owners to understand business requirements and ensure they are addressed in your designs.
- Collaborating with relevant internal teams to ensure our services meet MaPS, DWP and GDS standards for suitability, efficacy, usability, accessibility, quality, security and data protection.
- Creating user flows and prototypes for testing and review and Identifying and prioritising design assumptions.
- Working with user researchers and performance analysts to use analytics, customer feedback and other internal and external data to identify areas for improvement and inform designs.
You will need to demonstrate the following skills and experience;
- Extensive service design experience (likely to be 10 years or more). Some of this may have been in an adjacent role, such as interaction design, business analysis, or product- or service management.
- Able to lead a team comprising multiple design disciplines (e.g. service, interaction, visual, content, user research).
- Comfortable working across multiple projects with several stakeholders and comfortable leading and supervising external agencies and temporary staff.
- Confident working with other senior practitioners or team leads in other disciplines to drive consensus within and between project teams.
- Able to adapt to iterative requirements while championing good UCD practices.
- Confident presenting solutions to senior stakeholders across the business and addressing feedback.
- Good understanding of and interest in inclusive design including designing for (and with) users with sensory, motor, cognitive, mental health and fluctuating needs among others.
- Experience with Figma, Miro, and Adobe Creative Cloud or equivalent tools.
- Understanding of accessibility across digital and non-digital channels, including assisted digital.
- Experience with digital and non-digital services, including phone- and web chat-based support, advice, or guidance.
- Experience in the public sector or other regulated field (e.g. financial services, medicine, law).
Portfolio:
We don't require a portfolio, but if you have one we'd love to see it. If not, we'd like a short statement (up to 500 words — less is fine) highlighting specific projects or experience demonstrating the skills and abilities in this job description.
You will be leading the design of a service which helps people, including those with vulnerabilities, use complicated financial information to take positive action. So we are especially interested in examples which involve one or more of:
- Making difficult information accessible and compelling to non-experts
- Supporting users, especially users with low digital confidence and/or access needs, through complex digital services
- A large, content-heavy website
- Leading the design process for a multi-disciplinary team across multiple work streams
- Working to the GDS service standard
- Working for a public sector organisation
- Working in a financial services or other regulated environment
What Money and Pensions Service can offer you?
- Generous Annual Leave - 30 days plus Bank Holidays
- Pension scheme - contributions matched 2 to 1 (up to 10% of your salary)
- Interest-free loan to help you buy season tickets for buses and trains
- Cycle to work Scheme
- Subsidised eye test & flu jabs
- Life assurance scheme
- Give as you earn scheme
- Employee assistance programme (EAP)
- PAM Assist and PAM Life scheme (Wellbeing)
- Enhanced family and sick pay
- Paid volunteering (2 days a year)
- Recognition Scheme
- Discounts portal to numerous retailers
At MaPS, we take pride in our flexible approach to work. Most of our roles can operate on a hybrid basis with a minimum of 2 days in the office per week. Hybrid working is a voluntary, noncontractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business needs.
Job Reference: MaPS00673
Close Date: 14/08/2024