UX Designer – FairVentures Innovation Lab

If you’re interested, share your resume and portfolio with Adam Euerby, Sr Product Designer, at the Lab: aeuerby@fairventures.ca

User Experience Designer

Are you a UX designer early in your career looking for experience in a number of industries and projects? Interested the early inception stages of the product lifecycle? At FairVentures Lab, we’re looking for a UX Designer to help us work with Fairfax companies spanning insurance, restaurants, and retail industries to explore new markets and create innovative digital products and services. In the position, you’ll help with doing UX research to explore market and customer opportunities, rapid prototyping for mobile and other digital channels, and visual design for clear and realistic presentation of design concepts to customers and stakeholders. You would also contribute to the FairVentures Innovation Lab research agenda, exploring new digital experience channels and techniques including VR, AR, voice, chatbot, using applications of data analytics, behavioural economics, game design, and persuasive design.

FairVentures Innovation Lab is the innovation initiative of Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. We’re a diverse and experienced team of passionate technologists in the areas of product, design, data, startup investment, and software development. We research, develop, partner and invest in innovative solutions to support the Fairfax family of companies. We’re centrally located in Downtown Kitchener in one of the largest corporate innovation spaces of the Communitech Hub. The beautifully retrofitted heritage tannery building has full kitchens with espresso machines, a fitness center, an indoor basketball court, games room, private showers, and a patio with BBQs; all in proximity to the buzz of over 100 start-ups within the local incubation programs.

Come join us in this exciting opportunity to help shape the future of world-class Canadian company operating on the global stage. For more information on Fairfax Financial Holdings please visit www.fairfax.ca

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

• Quick learners with a creative and analytical mindset.
• Systems thinkers who are always looking for new ways to frame problems and design solutions.
• Motivated team players who are capable of owning and driving assignments.
• Desire to explore new technologies, methodologies, and tools.
• Entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to explore the unknown.

RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE:

Interaction Design

• Design prototypes for web, mobile, chatbot, data visualization, and other digital applications based on input from user research, design sprints, and other requirements sources.
• Create mockups, workflows, conceptual models, and other design documentation to communicate design concepts to the Lab team and Fairfax stakeholders.
• Elicit feedback on design concepts to drive iteration and refinement of design concepts.

User Research and User Testing

• Recruit participants from sources such as Fairfax companies, local sources, and agencies.
• Plan research activities including objectives, research questions, hypotheses, methods, interview scripts, and surveys questions.
• Coordinate interviews such as participant scheduling; remote calling; prototype set-up and instructions; notetaking; and other tasks required of those attending the interview.
• Analyze data (notes, photos, videos, etc.) for patterns to develop user personas, context scenarios, and other user and context models.
• Communicate findings and implications from user research with Lab team and Fairfax stakeholders.

Visual Design

• Clear and realistic presentation of design concepts to customers and stakeholders.
• Design with a consistent look and feel that conveys a believable brand concept.

Research and Lab Support

• Create visuals such as diagrams, infographics, logos, presentation slides to support the Lab’s outreach and communications to Fairfax companies.
• Research in UX issues of emerging technology (ex. AI, voice UI, chatbots, AR, VR, Game-based design, advanced web technologies).
• General UX support (FV website, presentation visuals, newsletter contributions, etc.).

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, & OTHER REQUIREMENTS:

• Portfolio of work that demonstrates your approach to solving user experience design problems.
• Product design experience preferably within a software, hardware, and/or start-up environment.
• Proficiency with design and prototyping tools such as Sketch, Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Balsamiq, Axure, Framer, Principle, etc.
• Experience with responsive web and mobile design.
• Experience conducting primary research including user research interviews and user testing.
• Comfortable facilitating or supporting the facilitation of design-related workshops.
• Excellent visual communication skills including whiteboard sketching, presentations slides, diagrams, etc.
• Excellent communication skills (spoken and written).
• Working knowledge of the Microsoft Office and Google Products.
• Familiarity with software development processes, Agile and Lean methodologies is an asset.
• Experience working a UX designer on an agile development team.
• Front-end development experience not required, but an asset.

Job: Senior UX Researcher at NetSuite (Kitchener)

Want to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment and see your work quickly impact product? Want to interact with customers on a regular basis and be an advocate for the customer? Then this position may be for you!

Summary

The mission of the NetSuite-Oracle Experience Design team is to enable customers to do their jobs quickly, easily and delightfully.

As a member of the team, you will expand efforts to collaborate with customers and help shape the ideal end-user experience. You will work with product teams, and user experience professionals to understand their learning objectives, and develop appropriate activities to achieve those goals. You will also provide end-user expertise and research to help teams produce elegant, intuitive and optimal designs. Your research findings and analysis will lead to actionable recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Propose, plan, execute, and deliver user research and usability activities at various stages of the development lifecycle.
• Collaborate with the experience design team and product management to help establish a strong usability methodology for NetSuite.
• Educate other teams on research and usability best practices and enable teams to explore basic research activities on their own.
• This is a very hands-on role, and includes managing participant recruitment, data collection (includes moderating sessions), data synthesis and analysis, and delivery of findings and recommendations.

Qualifications/Skills

• 5+ years’ experience doing qualitative and quantitative user research.
• Extensive experience planning and executing different types of research and usability testing activities such as customer visits, requirements gathering activities, survey research, and formative and summative usability evaluations.
• Degree in the field of HCI, Human Factors, Usability Engineering or related field (advanced degree a plus)
• Ability to creatively come up with appropriate research and usability methods for given research questions.
• Strong sense of independence, ownership, and initiative. Ability to self-direct and manage what to work on, how to get it done, and when to deliver
• Excellent organization skills and the ability to manage multiple high-profile projects in a fast-paced organization.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills. Strong analytical and presentation skills.
• Nice to have: Consumer UX experience.

Oracle is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans status or any other characteristic protected by law.

As part of Oracle’s standard employment process, candidates will undergo a complete background check prior to an offer being extended. These background checks are conducted by a professional third party firm at no charge to the applicant and include: prior employment verification, education verification, social security trace, criminal background check and motor vehicles records (where required for position).

Detailed Description and Job Requirements

Responsible for creating, evaluating and modifying prototypes to support evolving hardware and software application development.

As a member of the User Experience team, you will develop and apply software design/usability processes in the investigation of technical problems. May develop user profiles, with emphasis on human error control, display issues, visual interaction, physical manipulation and task and objective analyses. Provide product usability, evaluation and support to product development teams, including the analysis and investigation of applications/systems including tactile methods, visual graphics, web, multimedia, voice response and conversational user interaction. May assist in developing design concept and implementation, providing input on user design considerations. May produce specifications describing user needs and internal structures for product in development.

Duties and tasks are varied and complex utilizing independent judgment. Fully competent in own area of expertise. May have project lead role and or supervise lower level personnel. BS or MS degree or equivalent experience relevant to functional area. Typically four years of software engineering or related experience needed.

Oracle is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Interested candidates should send resumes directly to: alex.lyubelsky@oracle.com

December 2017: Sense and Respond, with Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden

We have a special remote presentation today from past Fluxible speakers Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden who will be joining us from Brooklyn NY and somewhere in Spain, respectively.

We are in the midst of a revolution.

Technology is no longer just an IT problem. The rhythm of technology is changing the rhythm of business, and businesses need to adapt. To thrive, businesses must become ‘sensing organizations,’ able to sense and respond to changing customer and employee behaviours.

In their new book Sense and Respond, past Fluxible speakers Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden explain how to build truly sensing organizations, using illuminating stories from organisations including Paypal, Zara, AutoTrader, and UK Government’s Digital Service.

Their new book tells us more about how to sense and respond effectively. This requires shifting from managing outputs to what the authors call ‘outcome focused management,’ which includes: – Framing work, not as a set of features to deliver, but as customer behaviors and outcomes that can be amplified, encouraged and changed

• Forming self-guided teams that can read and react to a fast-changing environment
• Creating a ‘learning-all-the-time’ culture that can understand and respond to new customer behaviors and the data they generate
• Developing the new universal skills of customer listening, assessment and response in everyone at the organization

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, describes Josh and Jeff’s work as providing “a crucial framework for the modern world of business.” For those looking to engage in a two-way conversation with the market and their customers, and to drive value from that conversation, please join us to learn more.

Note that this event is being presented at a special time and starts at 12:00 noon sharp! Note as well that we’re presenting Jeff and Josh in collaboration with Lean Product Waterloo.

Please register for this free event

Thursday December 14, 2017
12:00 noon to 1:15pm
3rd Floor Theatre, Roddenberry, Communitech
151 Charles Street West
Kitchener, Ontario

Job: UX Designer at Kiite (Waterloo)

About the role

In this exciting role you will be directly impacting our customer facing technologies and improving the way companies access meaningful information using Kiite. We are looking for someone who is passionate about translating insights of real people, data and customer research into beautifully designed user-friendly interfaces. If you’re constantly sketching ideas, dreaming in wireframes and always thinking of ways to improve user-design, we want you on the team.

In this role you’ll

• Lead UX Design projects from start to finish, create stunning interface designs and experiences for our end users.
• Listen to our users needs, feedback and obstacles and allow that information to guide the design process in order to create meaningful solutions for real people.
• Collaborate with a small, diverse, multidisciplinary team of engineers, developers and marketers to bring design concepts to life.
• Perform Usability Testing to identify what works and what doesn’t.
• Solve and define complex problems and make user-experience decisions related to core, and new, functions and features.
• Execute multiple thoughtfully designed concepts and prototypes. Maintain high quality work without sacrificing speed.

In your first 6 months on the team, you will

• Design and help implement a modern, web-based client dashboard & account management application
• Author chat-based user workflows and experiences
• Organize and run user-testing labs and experiments

What we’re looking for

Don’t worry if you don’t have all of the qualifications listed below — we’re particularly interested in someone that learns quickly, so if you only meet some of the criteria below but think you’re up for the challenge, please still reach out — we’d love to talk to you!

• 3+ years experience working in a UX role for business-focused tech in web-based platforms
• Passion for solving core product problems, taking ownership on all facets of a user experience (strategy, interaction design, and research)
• An understanding of interface & user experience design best practices for web and mobility devices
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize real user feedback into designs
• Experience collaborating with multiple disciplines including product, engineering, data analysts and more
• Knowledge of design tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Sketch and Invision
• Experience working in a collaborative, fast-paced and constantly evolving environment
• Previous experience with agile teams, agile methodologies and accessibility compliance

About Kiite

Kiite has built the world’s first Intelligent Sales Coach. The workplace is changing; new employees have more complex needs, want more personalized and frequent interactions, while also demanding more independence and changing jobs more frequently. Companies can’t survive the future of work with yesterday’s management practices. Kiite uses machine learning and natural language processing to give employees more autonomy and make managers dramatically more productive.

Kiite emerged from the founding team of TribeHR and our founding team includes deep roots in the HR technology space including employment and investments in NetSuite, Oracle, Rypple, Dayforce, and Axonify. We’re a team that’s dedicated to building extraordinary workplaces, and we’d like you to join us. We care deeply about inclusion & diversity – we’ve written about it, spoken about it, and live it

Interesting Facts

• Our team is 50% women and 30% immigrants
• We have more data scientists than developers
• Kiite means “listen” in Japanese, which is apt for a company improving management

The Environment & Benefits

• Located in Uptown Waterloo, in the Communitech Data Hub
• Flex hours & unlimited vacation
• 100% Paid, premium medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Equity
• Office is wheelchair accessible

Apply now!

November 2017: Thinking of the future is easy, the hard part is doing something about it

In this presentation, Aaron Szymanski and Janice de Jong of Real/Ideal will introduce the Strategic Foresight process, and how it informs ethnographic research and product strategy. With a case study of their work with Blue Ant Media’s Cottage Life brand, they will show what Strategic Foresight is and how fits in a user-centred innovation process. They’ll also give tips on how you can apply it in your own work.

Aaron Szymanski is a UX designer and strategist with Real/Ideal. Aaron’s previous experience includes Kinetic Cafe, where he led the design team and was the product owner for ALDO’s iOS application and Connected Store (Store of the Future) programs. Previously a Product Designer at Pivotal Labs and an Industrial Designer at BlackBerry where he worked with the portfolio development team to envision the future of connected technology and experiences.

Janice de Jong is a researcher and design strategist with Real/Ideal. Driven by the belief that understanding today can build a better tomorrow, she is passionate about inspiring private and public organizations to create the future. She holds a Master’s in Strategic Foresight and Innovation, is based in Kitchener, and is a frequent UX Waterloo attendee.

Please register for this free event

Thursday November 16, 2017
5:30 to 7:00 pm
3rd Floor Theatre, Roddenberry, Communitech
151 Charles Street West
Kitchener, Ontario

October 2017: What it means to be a design leader

We’re trying something different this month and featuring a remote presentation/conversation with Silicon Valley design veteran and past Fluxible speaker Uday Gajendar.

Uday will share insights from his career on what it means to be a design leader. Drawing upon experiences at large corporate groups and small scrappy startups as well as an indie consultant, Uday will hit upon a core set of themes: Working at multiple levels of craft, tackling the “wickedness” of complex business apps, collaborating with executives, and becoming an effective “force multiplier” with real impact and value. Each theme will be punctuated with real life “stories from the trenches” from his first day on the job after grad school to later moments along his journey — to help inspire others in their own path of becoming design leaders.

Please register for this free event

Wednesday October 18, 2017
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, 2nd floor
[View on Google Maps]

September 2017: Looking back and looking ahead at UX in Waterloo Region

It’s been almost exactly ten years since uxWaterloo held its kick-off meeting at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo. And it’s been just four days since the 2017 edition of Fluxible wrapped up. Given these milestones, we think a more reflective and conversational session is in order.

What do we want the next 10 years to look like? What’s on your mind UX-wise? What do you love about the UX community, both locally and globally? What are you looking for more of? How might the Waterloo Region become the place that designers in Canada want to call home?

Join us for lively conversation in which it’s 100% guaranteed that we’ll come up with all the answers! Or, if not, we’ll at least set the stage for ten more years of uxWaterloo topics. Yeah, let’s go with that…

Please register for this free event

Thursday September 28th, 2017
5:30 to 7:00 pm
3rd Floor Theatre, Roddenberry, Communitech
151 Charles Street West
Kitchener, Ontario

August 2017: Informal Pub Meetup, Part 2

Now available in a special August Edition! Complete with this repeated text from our delightful July Edition:

In what is now a beloved summer tradition, it’s time to replace energizing presentations and deep UX thoughts with a lighter event befitting the season. Let’s savour that summer feeling with an August uxWaterloo session that features informal talk, some of it even UX-related, and drinks. As befits any self-respecting tradition, we do this every July and August and the laid-back atmosphere and conversations are a welcome addition to any summer schedule. Join us!

And, as has become a yearly tradition, count on hearing from Bob and Mark with an an update on Fluxible 2017, Canada’s UX Festival! You’ve been warned…

Please register for this free event

Thursday August 17, 2017
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Abe Erb Brewing
15 King Street South, Uptown Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario

Digital Content Consultant at Manulife

Do you have a background in and a passion for user experience? Have you always put the needs of your customer at the forefront of your problem-solving approach? Are you seeking an opportunity to work on a heavily trafficked, high profile website? If you’ve answered yes to all the above, we may have the role for you!

Working in a fast paced, changing environment where every day brings something new and innovative ideas are encouraged to help our customers reach their dreams and aspirations, the Manulife Bank Digital & Payments team is seeking a highly motivated Digital Content Consultant to join our team. The Content Consultant will work closely with stakeholders, team members and the Digital Product Manager to develop content strategy, requirements and see changes through from idea to implementation and ongoing traffic analysis for different Manulife Bank digital properties.

Responsibilities

The Content Consultant’s responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Owning all web and digital content management activities
  • Develop a content strategy for Manulife Bank digital properties
  • Ensure the information presented on Manulife Bank digital properties is fresh, informative and appealing to meet our short and long term business goals
  • Oversee all content to ensure customer engagement, brand consistency and a positive customer experience
  • Collaborate with content, marketing and design teams to plan and develop site content, style and layout
  • Optimize content for SEO and AODA
  • Analyze and provide recommendations on website traffic and user engagement metrics
  • Manage content distribution to online channels and social media platforms to increase web traffic
  • Continually maintain a priority list and roadmap of upcoming enhancements to keep the site fresh, relevant and leading-edge
  • Remain abreast of innovative digital approaches and continually push the envelope to ensure Manulife employs and leverages opportunities
  • Assist Digital Product Manager(s) with strategy
  • Guide minor projects (enhancements) through the complete lifecycle, drawing upon internal and external resources, as required
  • Creation of user interface (UI) layouts reflecting the predefined user experience (UX) standards created and maintained by the User Experience team
  • Design of templates for key digital communications to drive engagement with content and desired actions (e.g. Advisor/Mortgage Broker newsletters, Onboarding communications etc)
• Coordination and scheduling across all channels of:
  • Marketing promotion pages
  • Banners
  • ABM screens
  • Email templates
  • eNewsletters
• * Performing web analytics (in coordination with Canadian Division Digital Team)
• * Executing rate change communications
• * Assist in platform migration activities as needed
• General site maintenance
  • Broken link scanning, SEO validation etc
• * Triage internal inquiries to the appropriate area of the Digital & Payments team
• * Manage and prioritize incoming requests for updates to digital properties

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• 3-5 years of relevant work experience
• Post-secondary education preferably related to Digital Technology, Business, Marketing or Communications
• Proven work experience with Digital Content Management
• Hands-on experience applying the fundamental principles of user experience design within user flows, sitemaps and low & high fidelity wireframes based on specifications, goals, needs and limitations
• Ability to leverage research findings to improve the online experience customers
• Experience with Adobe Experience Manager or other content management systems
• Highly organized with an ability to prioritize conflicting demands
• Knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO) best practices and digital analytics and their use in driving business results
• Experience managing and maintaining strong relationships with business unit stakeholders and team members
• Experience with online marketing campaigns, including management of targets and optimization methodologies would be a bonus. The ideal candidate will have knowledge of modern marketing tactics (e.g. contextual display advertising, dynamic PPC, latent conversion measurement)
• Skills and understanding of digital marketing/direct response conversion and A/B testing and optimization
• The incumbent will possess an excellent balance of analytical, communication and user experience skills and will be unafraid to challenge others to continually improve business results.

If this is your unlimited, please apply now!

Product Designer (UX) at TD Lab Incubator

Have you ever wondered how one of North America’s most successful companies develops some of their most innovative ideas? If so, you should consider joining our fast-paced and passionate engineering team at TD Lab. We ideate, build, and validate solutions that shape the future of digital banking. The TD Lab Incubator is a lean and highly collaborative work environment where our progressive team is changing TD Bank one sprint at a time. Make your mark by leading in this design role with a team that operates like a well-funded start-up all while helping teams at the bank lead the way across our many, diverse business lines in fintech!

As a product (UX) designer in a role like no other, you will be involved in every aspect of the concept development process – including documenting ideas, prototyping solutions, designing flows and validating them with customers. You will conduct foundational research to understand the problem to be solved. And with the team, you will aspire to learn everything we can about user behaviours, attitudes, goals and emotions. You will utilize your skills in product design, interaction design and visual design to explore the future of banking and how it might impact millions of customers. And, all within our well-resourced Lab located in the open and collaborative workspace in the Waterloo
Region’s Communitech Hub alongside other leaders of corporate innovation , Velocity Garage , and a host of start-ups.

What we’re looking for:

• Portfolio that highlights your project work.
• Min 2 years of product design experience (ie. interaction, UX, visual design).
• Min 2 years of conducting user research and user testing.
• Platform pattern knowledge (ie. across web, mobile, hybrid).
• Ability to create high-fidelity mockups using tools such as Sketch, Figma.
• Experience with Design Thinking through Design Sprints.
• Effective communication and presentation skills.
• Critical thinking and delivering on multiple projects simultaneously.

The responsibilities include:

• Being an owner that achieves results through end-to-end project accountability, stakeholder collaboration.
• Build innovative concepts and experiences for many types of customers.
• Explore the use of emerging design frameworks with prototype development.
• Lead Design Sprints to market-test how a prototype should look and function.
• Mentor design interns by teaching best practices, perform design critiques, etc.
• Conduct user research to help understand problems we’re trying to solve.
• Develop storyboards, mockups, prototypes to communicate design ideas.
• Shaping sprint demos and pitch concepts to senior technical executives.
• Sharing insights from projects with other teams just as eager to learn.
• Help continuously evolve and improve the TD Lab design process.

The research methods to have experience with as a bonus include:

• Jobs-to-Be-Done framework.
• Survey research (e.g. question phrasing, survey coding).
• Usability testing (e.g. lab studies, RITE studies).
• Benchmarking (e.g. evaluate competitors using qualitative, quantitative data).

The Perks:

• Monthly team events (e.g Bowling, Archery Tag, Axe Throwing, Escape Rooms)
• Latest MacBook, mobile devices (i.e. and whatever consumers use everyday)

As a TD Lab Product (UX) Designer, you really have a passion for the concept development process. You drive several projects at any given time and are exposed to the latest in modern digital technology. You have the opportunity to act like an entrepreneur, bringing impactful ideas to life while taking on challenging design tasks that ultimately best serve the best TD customer experience.

If you are a self-starter, want to be an influencer of change, and are looking for a challenge – this job is for you! Apply now.