Head of Product Design at NCBA Group

JOB PURPOSE STATEMENT

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