Job: Product Designer at Igloo

Igloo’s goal is to help people communicate and collaborate in the workplace. This means creating simple but effective workflows to enable people to create content and a delightful experience for consuming and collaborating on it.  We need a design leader who fights for the user, sets a high bar for design in all of our products and is a champion for instilling a design culture in our business.

Our Ideal Candidate

You walk in the shoes of the user, think in experiences and are passionate about creating solutions that are intuitive and motivating. You understand that design and performance are not mutually exclusive and you know how to blend the two. And you love making interfaces that are easy to use and beautiful at the same time.

You use a spectrum of tools: personas, design sprints, customer journey maps, wireframes, and occasionally, the back of a napkin to help you design effective solutions to customer problems. You love taking rough ideas and iterating on them until they are a refined product that reinforces our brand and vision.

You enjoy working and collaborating with product managers, developers, testers and company leadership to create the best experiences for customers. You will question and gather feedback on designs, prototypes and demos to ensure they live up to a high standard. Above all else you are passionate about product design, the user, and designing delightful experiences.

Think you’re the right fit? Submit your re­sume including a link to your portfolio to careers@igloosoftware.com.

Key responsibilities

• Join a team that’s leading interaction design for our product.
• Take complex ideas and translate them into clean workflows based on user research.
• Facilitate user testing and conduct interface analysis.
• Engage with our customers and product team to understand user needs and competitive landscape.
• Aid in the creation of user stories and support our engineering teams during scrum sprints.
• Create and maintain design guidelines to ensure consistency across our applications.
• Work with design and development teams to bring UX concepts to life.
• Evangelize the importance of design within the organization.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• 2-4 years’ experience working in UX for web-based platforms.
• Experience in user research, interaction design and visual design for the web.
• Strong creative research, writing, and design skills.
• Strong communication skills, but better listening skills.
• You live in Sketch for early concepts, wireframes and high fidelity mockups.
• Adept at creating interactive prototypes with InVision, Marvel, Flinto or similar tools.

Nice to Haves

• Experience with graphic design.
• Ability to write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Experience with responsive and native mobile app design (iOS, Android).

Education

3-year diploma or 4-year degree in design, computer science, human-computer interaction, or similar.

Job: Manager of UX Design at Christie Digital Systems

Join the UX team at Christie in a leadership role and help solve meaningful and complex design challenges with a team of dedicated professionals. Established several years ago at Christie, the UX team has made a significant shift in our culture and in our product lines, shifting us from technology centric to user centric designs. The on-going collaboration with engineering teams in designing new processes and output have helped changed the shape of the professional AV industry, with several high profile wins attributed to the group. This role will offer a high profile chance to work in industrial, visual and interaction design paradigms to create meaningful, enjoyable experiences that are market leading.

In this role, you will assume the primary leadership, scaling up staffing, managing and mentoring staff, providing insight and guidance to the team, establishing work processes and principles, work closely with engineering and product management, organize user research, seek greater market and user insights and help in making the inevitable trade-offs between usability and engineering constraints. You will be one of the primary champions of UX at Christie and will interact with many beyond engineering and product management including sales, customers of all levels and at industry events.

You will have three or more years of leadership experience of a UX team and five to fifteen years of industry experience. A keen understanding and experience in industrial design, visual design and interaction design principles are a must. A passion for product design and the ability to bridge the gap between users and complex tools as well as a desire to understand and analyze market trends and dynamics are key. A strong portfolio of work along with demonstrable leadership qualities will be vital too. A dynamic self-starter with a passion for leading teams to greatness in a UX discipline will define the winning candidate.

To apply, please email Hans Kao at hans.kao@christiedigital.com.

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!

November 2016: UX in the Wild

Recently, KW’s very own Sarah Klassen-Rempel gave this talk at the UX Cambridge conference in the United Kingdom. Please join us as Sarah gives a hometown reprise!

One year ago, my idealistic view of what it would be like to work as a UX designer in the real world was shattered. I went from being surrounded by like-minded people, learning more UX and being able to approach projects my own way, to being the first and only UI/UX designer at a transportation management software company. It meant I needed to learn a lot of things, fast. And the things that I did learn were not things that I thought I would be learning when I started the job.

This talk, at its core, is about those things. The things I needed to learn and implement quickly — in order to go from drawing icons and being called the “UIX designer” to running sessions at a user group conference and visiting customers to talk directly to our users.

On the surface, this talk is about what it’s like to go from being a full-time student to a full-time UX designer — in a place that has never had one before — and the unexpected challenges that came with that experience. But it’s also a reminder that UX isn’t always glamorous, a celebration of how far UX has come as a discipline, and a case study or testimony of how important mentorship can be.

The first time I did a version of this talk was at UX Cambridge this September (that’s Cambridge, England, not Ontario), and I am really excited to have the opportunity to share it with my home community.

Connect with Sarah on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Please register for this free event

Thursday November 17, 2016
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub
Roddenberry Theatre on the 3rd floor
151 Charles Street West
Kitchener, Ontario

Job: UI/UX Designer at Bedouin

If you’re an individual looking to work in an environment that facilitates your obsessive need to perfect details — this is the role for you.

We’re looking for a team player that is familiar with both UX Research and can apply those principles in their own UI/interface designs. This role will primarily be working on our internal projects, and will involve some occasional work on long-standing client projects. You will collaborate with internal Bedouin colleagues to develop and maintain our projects, along with experimenting by building out mini projects and tools for Bedouin in our laboratory.

This role is perfect for someone who cares about the methodical parts of UX, creative pieces of UI, and the ability to drive innovation through growth by design.

You can do this:

• Communicate like a boss
• Familiar with best UX practises and techniques
• Create pixel perfect interface design, while still keeping in mind UX practises
• Enhance designs with fluid, elegant animation and interactivity
• Constantly seek inspiration, and share that inspiration with others
• Stay humble and stay hungry, leaving ego at the door
• Articulate challenges before they become problems
• Work hard, play hard, and love what you do

What we expect:

• Experience with Sketch
• Execute interaction design and visual design as a part of a multi-disciplinary team
• Design elegant solutions to complex workflows
• Consult with clients and lead experience architect
• Research interaction design trend and technology trends
• Create developer-ready wireframes, behavioural specifications and personas
• Develop mobile and web mock-ups and demos
• Have been developing for a while now (over 2 years)

Bonus Points:

If have experience with Principle, we’ll be happy campers.

You get this:

• Money
• Free snacks (who hates fruit roll-ups?!) and frequent company lunches/dinners
• Amazing clients to work with
• A great working space in Downtown Kitchener right next to the Innovation District
• A seasoned team with acquisitions under their belt that work hard, have fun, and love challenges
• Growth opportunities

To apply

Please send your resume and cover letter to hello@bedouin.com. Please include your portfolio, Behance or Dribbble links, and/or samples of your work to be considered for this position.

*Please note: While we sincerely appreciate your interest in Bedouin, due to a high number of applicants, sometimes we can only respond directly to those who best quality and meet the specific criteria and standards of our roles.

Senior UX Designer at TextNow

Location: Waterloo, ON
Position: Senior UX Designer
Company: TextNow

The telecom industry has far too long been dominated by the big, the bureaucratic and the unimaginative. Now is the time for someone to take this industry on with something better.

We are changing the industry by providing what others cannot: a better user experience, better customer service, continual innovation, and most importantly — transparent pricing.

The TextNow Design team is currently seeking an exceptional UX Designer to help craft the vision for TextNow’s user experience. You will be responsible for creating intuitive and beautiful digital products that meet both user and business needs. We’re looking for a user-centric designer to help take great ideas from the whiteboard, through development, and into the hands of millions of people.

What You’ll Do:

• Advocate for our users, obsessing over ways to make their experience better.
• Utilize qualitative & quantitative data to inform design.
• Push creativity and discover new ways to solve problems elegantly.
• Clearly communicate design rationale, explaining choices to product stakeholders.
• Refine existing products with a user-centric design approach.

Requirements

Who you are:

• You have a proven track record of shipping successful products and features.
• You have an online portfolio demonstrating experience designing intuitive, user-centred design solutions.
• You have strong and clean visual design sense.
• You have a degree in a design related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• You have 3+ years experience designing mobile or web based applications.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with A/B testing, analytics, marketing automation, and lifecycle campaigns.
• Experience with usability testing and user research.
• Ability to work and communicate in a technical environment.
• Experience designing across multiple platforms (Web, iOS, Android, Windows, & Mac OSX).
• Demonstrated passion for design with personal projects.

Benefits:

• Impactful work
• TextNow-powered smartphone
• Competitive total compensation package
• Catered breakfast and lunch
• Professional development
• Fitness center on site, games room
• Multiple social events (milestones celebrations, escape rooms, rock climbing)

To Apply

Apply online at the TextNow website.

June 2016: Innovation and UX at Deloitte’s d { } Lab

d { } (pronounced “Dee Space”) is Deloitte¹s prototyping hub dedicated to accelerating the development of new products and services by leveraging emerging technologies. d { } opened in May 2015 in the Communitech Hub. Its team helps Deloitte intrapreneurs explore new business models using lean thinking and digital prototypes that are created by multidisciplinary, entrepreneurial teams possessing deep technical and design skills.

Join us for an informal overview of the moonshots, MVPs, and proof-of-concept projects undertaken by the lab in its first year. Norm Malloch, the lab’s Director, will discuss their experience in domains such as wearables/IoT, mobile collaborative experiences, and blockchain technologies. Come see the impact of design thinking and UX practices in a fast-paced innovation lab!

Please register for this free event

Thursday June 23, 2016
6:00 to 7:30 pm
Communitech Hub, 3rd floor theatre
[View on Google Maps]

May 2016: Case Study of Design Week with UNICEF Canada

Canada ranks at only 17th of 29 industrialized countries on overall child well-being, a fact that UNICEF is tired of. Over the past two years, UNICEF Canada has been exploring the possibility of opening an Observatory for Canada’s children that would aim to improve the well-being of kids in Canada. They started working with Kitchener’s Overlap to explore what this could look like and how it could work. There are many observatories for child well-being around the world, and when UNICEF Canada started out, they figured it would take the same form—an organization much like a think-tank that would monitor, analyze and report on the state of children in Canada.

So in October 2015, Overlap tested how this might work by running what they called Design Week with UNICEF Canada. For six days, Overlap brought together around 25 experts in child well-being, measurement, storytelling, and design to tackle questions like, “how might we measure child well-being in ways that are relevant to children and youth in the context of Canada?”

In this talk, Delaney Swanson of Overlap will describe what they were trying to achieve in the project, how they used Design Week to prototype part of the Observatory, what they learned from it, and where they are in the project now. This will touch on what they learned about facilitating design processes with non-designers, and the value of a design sprint in getting things done fast, especially in traditional institutions.

About the Speaker

Delaney Swanson is a service designer at Overlap, a research and strategy firm in Kitchener that uses human insights to improve services and systems, and integrate new ways of thinking into big institutions. She believes in the power of good design to influence behaviour through policy, services, physical spaces, and products. She thinks most of the time, real life gets in the way of the “ideal” behaviour most things are designed for—instead, she’d rather things be designed for the complexity of real people. Delaney helps organizations understand the needs and experiences of the people they serve (and employ), and align their strategy to meet these needs

Please register for this free event

Thursday May 26, 2016
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Area 151 at the Communitech Hub
[View on Google Maps]

Job: UX Designer at NetSuite

Why NetSuite?

To start, you’ll be surrounded by smart, innovative, caring people — invested in our customers and the community. If you’re looking to share your unique perspective and ideas at a collaborative table and help equip all kinds of businesses achieve their visions, check us out.

Position Summary

NetSuite is looking for a passionate and highly collaborative user experience designer to support our Human Capital Management (HCM) team in Waterloo, Canada.

The ideal candidate will be a creative person with an inquisitive mind who is energized to re-imagine the way people, brands and commerce intersect in the digital world.

At NetSuite, you will work in an environment that places a high value on design. You will also be encouraged to come up with new ideas and will be rewarded and recognized for your efforts.

Responsibilities

• Work in a hands-on role producing stellar designs that negotiate the complexity of a cloud driven enterprise software system
• Partner with designers, user researchers and product managers in usability and other customer feedback activities
• Communicate with cross-functional team members, gather feedback, and iterate quickly
• Apply creative problem solving and strategic thinking to complex design problems
• Effectively present designs, communicate rationale, trade-offs, and be receptive to feedback
• Produce high-quality design deliverables to communicate design solutions, open questions and facilitate discussion
• Perform at a high level in a fast-paced, dynamic, agile environment and be open to change

Qualifications / Skills

• Degree in Visual Design, Product/Industrial Design, Human Factors, Human Computer Interaction or related field, or equivalent professional experience
• 3+ years working in the field of user experience design, visual design, interaction design, user interface design, etc.
• Experience producing high quality wireframes, mock-ups, prototypes, etc.
• E-Commerce experience working with clients in different verticals and understanding their needs a plus.
• Experience in responsive design, mobile and tablets experience a plus.

To Apply

Learn more about working at NetSuite Waterloo, then apply directly by email to Gary Good (ggood at netsuite dot com. Note: Please include your resume and portfolio in order to be considered for this position.

Job: Team Lead, Senior UX Designer at NetSuite

Why NetSuite?

To start, you’ll be surrounded by smart, innovative, caring people — invested in our customers and the community. If you’re looking to share your unique perspective and ideas at a collaborative table and help equip all kinds of businesses achieve their visions, check us out.

Position Summary

NetSuite is looking for a passionate and highly collaborative user experience designer to support our Cash Management/Financials team in Waterloo, Canada.

The mission of the Experience Design team is to bring delight to enterprise software. The ideal candidate is a creative problem solver with a passion for providing innovative and elegant designs. They will work with cross–functional teams in various locations to drive design process and design thinking efforts.

Responsibilities:

• Hands-on creative problem solving in a cloud-driven enterprise software system.
• Work with a multi-disciplined UX team of designers, user researchers and product managers in a fast-paced, dynamic, agile environment.
• Produce high-quality design deliverables that communicate design solutions and facilitate discussion.
• Presentation of design alternatives and effectively communicate rationale and trade-offs.
• Demonstrate a passion for iteration and eager to receive feedback.
• Ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects of varying timelines, degrees of complexity and scope.
• Responsible for managing remote and local employees.

Qualifications/Skills:

• Degree in Product/Industrial Design, Human Factors, Human Computer Interaction or related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Minimum 5+ years working in the field of UX/UI design.
• Online portfolio demonstrating experience producing sketches, wireframes, mock-ups, prototypes, task-flows or relevant design artifacts.
• Experience producing high quality wireframes, mock-ups, prototypes, etc.
• Experience working in Agile Development methodology a plus.
• Experience managing local / remote employees.

To Apply

Learn more about working at NetSuite Waterloo, then apply directly by email to Gary Good (ggood at netsuite dot com. Note: Please include your resume and portfolio in order to be considered for this position.