Job: Interaction Designer at Manulife RED Lab

Imagine a place where grown men and women are not afraid to play with Lego. Where practically all surfaces are made as canvases for your ideas (that means you can write on them, yo). Where you — yes, YOU — get to have a say on what cool new shiny toy you want to play with next in order to solve real problems in how financial services (think: banking and insurance and everything in between) is done today. And you get paid to do it.

Welcome to Manulife’s Research, Exploration and Development Lab! But you can call it the RED Lab. We’re a small team with big ideas and we want more idea hackers like you. We are fully funded and supported by Manulife but largely work autonomously like a startup. We aim high, run fast, and jump often. Our playground is the Communitech Hub — the origin of Pebble Watch, Thalmic Labs, Vidyard and more. This is where all cool things related to startups and innovation in Kitchener/Waterloo happen. And that’s where we want to play, too.

About the role

The Interaction Designer will be able to discover, understand, and communicate the organization’s business requirements, the emotional desires of our customers, and the context in which these two come together. Regardless of form-factor or device, the Interaction Designer will make deliberate design decisions backed up by solid reasoning and evidence. We’re looking for someone who is part researcher and part UI designer, who is driven by curiosity, a healthy appetite to learn, and an eagerness to solve people’s problems.

About you

• Are you a creative who is analytic? Or an analytic who is creative?
• Do you believe in and champion the value of user research?
• Do you love designing interfaces that help and delight people?
• Are you excited to influence and convince your peers to look at the world through your
  empathy-tinted worldview?
• Do you get excited by the idea of advocating for the value of design in a large organization?
• Are you comfortable with prototyping and interface-building tools like Keynote, Sketch,
  InVision, Illustrator or any other tools to bring your design ideas to life? Are you always looking
  out for new tools that can make your design process better?
• Do you believe that financial services need to be designed better for human experiences?
• Do you care and wonder about how many more things can be stuffed in a pizza crust?

Then RED Lab wants to talk to you!

How you will contribute

• Participate in and contribute to project kickoff and ideation sessions and help to set the overall design strategy.
• Plan, coordinate, and conduct user requirements analysis, task analysis, conceptual modelling, interaction design, and usability testing.
• Design and specify user interfaces for multiple form factors including smartphones, smartwatches, and even voice, using participatory and iterative design techniques, including observational studies, customer interviews, usability testing, design sprints, rapid prototyping, and other forms of requirements discovery.
• Be comfortable with producing and evangelizing design artifacts like personas, storyboards, scenarios, flowcharts, design prototypes, and design specifications.
• Effectively communicate research findings, conceptual ideas, detailed design, and design rationale both verbally and visually with a strong bend towards storytelling.
• Work closely with RED Lab/Manulife developers to ensure that design specifications are understood and implemented.
• Occasionally mentor and educate co-ops, peers, and senior managers on the design process.

What success looks like

Success in this role means delivering results and excitement through team work and a relentless focus on what’s best for Manulife’s customers and the organization. Success is walking into RED Lab every work day eager to learn about emerging trends in technology and design, and having the drive and curiosity to bring your wildest imaginations to life. Success is embracing uncertainty and being willing to discover as you continue to rapidly prototype your way to knowledge. Success is making it easier for the larger organization to adopt your ideas and enthusiasm for change. Success is believing that you can make a difference.

How to apply

If this posting has resonated with you, then what are you waiting for? Send your cover letter and portfolio of your best works and design process (we really, really would like to see a portfolio), to Ali_Tariq@manulife.com. If we see a potentially good fit, we’ll call you in to get to know each other a little more!