Head of Product Design at NCBA Group

Job Description

Head of Product Design at NCBA Group

The Head of Product Design is responsible for leading and coordinating multiple design workstreams for user-facing products. They will use their expertise to guide designers and ensure their work aligns with the overall strategy. They will also serve as a partner in business and implementation decisions, advocating for the needs of users by applying your understanding of how to transform insights into data-driven, human-centric designs.

The Head of Product Design provides a creative vision not just for the design team but the whole organization. They establish processes and practices for realizing that vision, and set the bar for quality. They contribute to the development of brand definition and experience principles, and ensure that those are appropriately interpreted through the team’s work.

The Head of Product Design is a creative professional that manages the brand, visuals and creative endeavors of the products. They craft the brand experience, defines why they’ve chosen specific options and ensures that any customer or client-facing visual epitomizes that brand. On an operational level, they oversee the design team and act as a final element of quality control for new branding or design campaigns.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES)

Product Design (40%):

• Clearly articulate vision and strategy to the Product Design Team
• Establish best practices in design management and employ useful design frameworks to support team growth
• Collaborate with stakeholders and other disciplines to facilitate successful delivery within agile teams
• Design and test new products and value propositions based on a deep understanding of business, customer, content, and technology opportunities
• Leading design rituals and developing standards that support a collaborative culture and improve the craft of the Product Design team.
• Define and share a unified UX / design vision and strategy for LOOP and help set high-level and detailed product design direction in collaboration with product teams and cross-functional peers
• Develop key principles around our UX thinking, covering both B2C and B2B products
• Drive the development of a set of metrics and frameworks that help track and improve UX quality and impact in terms of Design, Usability and Accessibility
• Improve our standard of UX practices through equal parts leadership, inspiration, evangelization and collaboration.

UX Research (20%)

• Work with Product Leaders to advocate for the right research at the right time.
• Responsible for the planning and prioritization of user research across the organisation.
• Advocate for research more broadly, and for research on the most impactful projects.
• Champion research internally to ensure visibility and impact of your team’s work.
• Build strong partnerships with your peers in Product, Engineering, and Data Science, and you will work with peers in market research, commercial research, consumer revenue, audience development, analytics, custom insights, and experimentation to provide a holistic understanding of our global audiences.

Interaction Design (15%)

• Apply strategic thinking to deliver end-to-end experience solutions with a focus on user needs and business goals directly responsible for delivering all aspects of design, from defining customer needs to delivering concepts and prototypes to UI specifications for development.
• Work directly with stakeholders to design end-to-end experiences using participatory and iterative design techniques, including observational studies, customer interviews, usability testing, and other forms of qualitative and quantitative research to uncover insights, learn about user behavior and validate design concepts
• Use the full range of design methods to deliver the best possible experiences for our users including sketching, creating experience maps, wire framing, prototyping, running workshops, sharing user insights with wider stakeholders and collaborating with other designers etc.
• Produce user requirements specifications, personas, storyboards, scenarios, user-flow diagrams, wireframes, design prototypes, and design parameters.
• Design and specify user interfaces and information architecture using participatory and iterative design techniques, including observational studies, customer interviews, usability testing, and other forms of requirement’s discovery.
• Knowledge and experience in user interface design with consumer applications, preferably mobile devices, rich web apps/websites.
• Proactively improve how the design team works by exploring new tools, methods, and processes.

People (25%)

• Lead and manage a talented, diverse, and inclusive team of Product Designers to consistently deliver high-quality user experiences across Loop
• Support and coach designers in achieving their career goals and personal development
• Maintain a culture of design simplicity, ensuring that new features and products are simple, elegant, and usable
• Foster a culture of design feedback, providing honest and sensitive feedback to team members to help them grow and develop their skills
• Clearly articulate vision and strategy to the Product Design Team.

JOB SPECIFICATIONS

Academic:

• University Degree. MBA or a Master’s degree in a business field is desirable.
• Product Design, Experience Design, and UX Research certifications desirable.

Desired work experience:

• At least 10 years’ work experience, 5 of which should have been in a senior management capacity in a similar sized organisation having led successful business and product development projects and/or initiatives.
• Extensive experience with creation tools, including but not limited to: Figma, Adobe, Photoshop etc.
• Experience with prototyping tools and software, with the ability to animate and produce truly interactive prototypes at speed
• Extensive knowledge and experience with driving and applying User Centered Design methodology
• Expert in interface and interaction design, site navigation, architecture, and excellent typography skills

JOB COMPETENCIES

Technical Competencies

• Designs mobile app experiences from start to finish as a product
• Has strong command of visual design and information architecture with a mind for simplicity and deep knowledge of modern mobile UI/UX patterns while exercising an extraordinary eye for typography, consistency, colour, and subtle details
• Has strong problem-solving acumen to determine solutions to user interface challenges
• Can facilitate discovery workshops and ideation sessions with cross-disciplinary teams from inside and outside our organisation
• Possess knowledge of usability best practices and visual design principles across different device types and form factors
• Understanding of accessibility and the latest web technologies
• Demonstrable understanding of user behavior online (desktop, mobile & tablet), and best practice & thinking in this area
• Track record in delivering increases in sales and service KPIs, through improved interface design and improved adoption of products and services
• Proven track record of leading generative and evaluative research, information architecture and interaction design engagements, ideally for a variety of complex digital applications. (this should be demonstrated in your portfolio)
• Experience in hiring, managing and coaching UX teams
• Presentation skills, which can be demonstrated through the presentation of your interactive design portfolio.
• Familiarity with creative design thinking as well as good understanding of UI/UX best practices, information architecture, Gestalt principles, and design psychology.
• Understanding of business metrics and the ability to translate company goals and objectives into digital experiences
• Proven track record of leading through influence, building long-term relationships and building vision, strategy, roadmaps, budgets, priorities and objectives
• Strong understanding of near and long-term technological developments impacting UX domain
• Excellent understanding and managing of business impact across a wide range of product domains. Ability to make key pricing & packaging recommendations.

Behavioural Competencies

• Relate easily and naturally with executives, business managers, technical teams and customers. Has excellent listening skills and understands the desires and challenges of all our leaders and customers.
• Ability to form trusted relationships with technical teams and customers
• Possess broad knowledge of business and has an interest in market trends. Have intricate knowledge of our business: its vision, mission, strategy, values and how it operates.
• Clearly communicate and share the planned cyber initiatives, reports, and risks with executives, business leaders, and stakeholders across the organization – in a manner that leaves them all touched, moved and inspired.
• Passionate about innovation. Loves technology and possesses both a deep and broad understanding of the technology market and cutting-edge technology and Cyber trends.
• Continuously listening to our stakeholder’s feedback and coming up with new architectures and enhancing existing ones to leverage these cutting-edge technologies.
• Ability to change plans, methods, opinions, or goals considering new information, with the readiness to act on opportunities. Highly effective in adapting to differing environments.
• Their work has had a material impact in attracting new customers, delighting existing customers, increasing our market share and enhancing our organizations efficiency and profits.

Delivery model is organized around delighting our customers, increasing our profitability, and increasing the businesses efficiency.

Head of Product Design at NCBA Group