Department: Advancement and External Relations 

Job Type: Continuing

Full-time/Part-time: Full Time (>=1249 hrs/year) 

Campus: Waterloo 

Reports to: Director, Digital Experience

Employee Group: WLUSA 

Application Deadline: May 28, 2024

Requisition ID: 6980 

Wilfrid Laurier University is a leading multi-campus university that excels at educating with purpose. Through its exceptional employees, students, researchers, leaders, and educators, Laurier has built a reputation as a world-class institution known for its rich student experience, academic excellence, and global impact. With a commitment to Indigenization and commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, Laurier’s thriving community has a place for everyone.

Laurier has more than 19,000 students and 2,100 faculty and staff across campuses in Waterloo and Brantford, as well locations in Kitchener and Milton. The university is committed to providing an inclusive workplace, a flexible work policy and employing a workforce that is reflective of local and national demographics. Our locations are situated on the traditional territories of the Neutral, Anishnawbe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. We recognize the unique heritages of Indigenous peoples and support their intentions to preserve and express their distinctive Indigenous cultures, histories, and knowledge through academic programming and co-curricular activities. Laurier’s Centre for Indigegogy is one example of how Laurier honours Indigenous knowledge.

Position Summary

Reporting to the Director, Digital Experience in External Relations, the Senior User Experience Designer is a creative and innovative professional with well-established expertise in usability design and UX practice. The Senior User Experience Designer drives Laurier’s UX practice, demonstrating expertise in a variety of information gathering tools and user research techniques, leveraging data to continuously improve Laurier’s digital environment.

The senior designer is responsible for ensuring Laurier’s digital solutions are accessible, user centered, and meet the diverse and evolving needs of our community. The senior designer works to evaluate, conceptualize and design digital experiences that positively reflect Laurier’s brand and contribute to the University’s critical conversion efforts.

The senior designer works closely with all members of the Digital Experience team and is a mentor to the User Experience Designer. The Senior User Experience Designer contributes to the prioritization and execution of complex digital projects, leveraging a strong understanding of institutional, team, client and user priorities.  

This position has a university-wide mandate and is based at the Waterloo campus.

Accountabilities 

Usability Design

• Serves as Laurier’s UX subject matter expert, providing expertise, guidance, and advice throughout the institution while implementing and standardizing UX process and practices.
• Leads all stages of user experience design, from planning to measurement.
• Generates a full spectrum of design artifacts to support the communication of user insights and strategic priorities, such as: analytics reports, user requirements, journey maps, high fidelity design prototypes, and/or wireframes.
• Leads inclusive and accessible design standards across all projects, ensuring unified design experiences that work for everyone.
• Coordinates and implements research-based modifications and complex solutions to improve user experience, interface design, navigability, and performance of Laurier’s core websites, high-impact digital solutions, and related systems.
• Defines and documents the functional and technical specifications for digital solutions and tools, coordinating implementation with ICT, clients, external vendors, and Digital Experience teams.
• Participates in plans and decisions related to visual design, usability, and multimedia aspects of the Laurier web presence, contributing to enhancement and redesign projects on an ongoing basis.

Research & Analysis

• Oversees planning, configuration, deployment and governance of Google Analytics across Laurier’s web properties.
• Oversees the monitoring of user behaviours and interactions, follows campaigns, and determines success of the user experience.
• Performs thorough and detailed statistical analysis of data and information surrounding website and digital solutions metrics and performance.
• Analyzes and conducts website/application heuristic evaluation, A/B, multivariate and usability testing.
• Organizes and facilitates workshops, surveys, focus groups, etc. with internal and external users to elicit user data.
• Leads and/or oversees user research and concept testing, and champions for the incorporation of user research continuously in the digital product lifecycle.
• Confidently presents data-driven findings and prioritized, actionable recommendations to stakeholders across the university, including senior leadership, service departments, academic units, and project teams.

Leadership & Accountability

• Assigns minor tasks and has day-to-day oversight of the User Experience Designer, reviewing project work and offering mentorship.
• Trains User Experience Designer on UX best practices and Laurier’s analytics program.
• Provides UX thought leadership and best practice consultations to clients across the university, advocating for data-driven decisions and the user experience design process.
• Leads complex projects to define, optimize and measure digital interfaces, architectures, and experiences, owning project execution, documentation, and communication.
• Contributes to project triage and prioritization as a senior team member, aligning institutional, team and client priorities with user needs and available resources.
• Confidently leads project teams and stakeholders through design processes.
• Provides strategic UX leadership and guidance to the Digital Experience team, building capacity and empowering the team to follow design processes.
• Leads Laurier’s UX community of practice, building knowledge of and confidence in usability design and user-focused approaches.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree, preferably in User Experience Design or Interaction Design
• Minimum 5-7 years of experience in a UX role, with strong preference for candidates with more than 7 years of experience or equivalent.
• Advanced understanding of web accessibility, W3C, AODA legislation and implications for user experience design.
• Human-centred design experience and expertise in developing and executing strategies that improve overall user interactions with digital solutions, resulting in measurable improvements.
• Proven experience creating functional and technical specifications for web or systems developers.
• Demonstrated experience creating a full spectrum of design artifacts to communicate/convey user insights and strategic recommendations.
• Demonstrated experience creating user research plans, recruiting participants, facilitating, analyzing findings and delivering insights to diverse stakeholder groups.
• Advanced experience analyzing and conducting website or digital application heuristic evaluation, A/B, multivariate, learnability and usability testing.
• Ability to lead the design of complex digital solutions from concept to production and the ability to develop and maintain a high standard for user experiences and performance measures.
• Advanced skills in Google Analytics and working knowledge of Google Tag manager.
• Expertise in UX software such as InVision, Axure, Balsamiq, or similar.
• Strong project management skills.
• Strong verbal, written and presentation skills, with demonstrated ability to communicate clear, concise findings and actionable recommendations.
• Ability to deal with difficult situations with tact and diplomacy seeking to resolve problems and find long-term solutions.
• Portfolio demonstrating impactful digital experiences, including experience developing digital solutions from initial concept through to implementation.
• Understanding of front-end web development an asset (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.).
• Advanced Google Analytics certification is an asset.
• UX and/or human centered design certification is an asset.

This position has been deemed eligible for educational equivalencies.  Please refer to the attached link for details. 

Compensation

Level: F

Rate of pay: $44.02 - $46.56 per hour with an annual step progression on anniversary date up to $50.31 per hour

Considerations for new hire step placements include, qualifications and length/depth of required experience, relevant market rates for similar jobs, internal equity, and estimated learning curve in starting the job.

Hours of Work

This is a full time continuing position. The normal hours of work are 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Monday to Friday.  Flexibility in hours will be required, including evening and/or weekend work due to events. When possible, the manager will adjust the work schedule so that no more than 35 hours are worked in a week.

This position is eligible for a hybrid work arrangement, as per Policy 8.14 (Flexible Work Policy). In-person attendance for events, as required to meet operational needs, is expected. On occasion, this schedule may need to be adjusted to meet operational requirements.

Wilfrid Laurier University endeavors to fill positions with qualified candidates who have a combination of education, experience, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position while demonstrating Laurier's Employee Success Factors.

Equity, diversity and creating a culture of inclusion are part of Laurier’s core values and central to the Laurier Strategy. Laurier is committed to increasing the diversity of faculty and staff and welcomes applications from candidates who identify as Indigenous, racialized, having disabilities, and from persons of any minority sexual and gender identities. Indigenous candidates who would like to learn more about equity and inclusive programing at Laurier are welcomed to contact the Office of Indigenous Initiatives. Candidates from other equity deserving groups who would like to learn more about equity and inclusive programing at Laurier are welcomed to contact Equity & Accessibility. We have strived to make our application process accessible, however if you require any assistance applying for a position or would like this job posting in an alternative format, please contact Human Resources. Contact information can be found at careers.wlu.ca/content/How-to-apply/

Should you be interested in learning more about this opportunity, please visit www.wlu.ca/careers for additional information and the online application system. All applications must be submitted online. Please note, a resume and cover letter will be required in electronic form.