Designer - Nesta｜Meet.jobs

We are recruiting a Designer. This role is part of Nesta's Design & Technology community of practice - which will provide peer support, professional development and line management - and be embedded into The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT).

Nesta recently acquired BIT, and we are in the process of forging stronger relationships between our two organisations - sharing ideas and methods, like design, to improve the lives of millions through both charitable and commercial work.

This means the majority of time for this role (approx. 4 days a week) will be spent developing BIT's design capabilities as well as supporting project work for clients. With the remainder focused on being part of a Nesta-wide community of designers and technologists, your own professional development and furthering Nesta's missions.

About Nesta

We are Nesta, the UK's innovation agency for social good. We design, test and scale solutions to society's biggest problems. Our three missions are to give every child a fair start, help people live healthy lives, and create a sustainable future where the economy works for both people and the planet.

For over 20 years, we have worked to support, encourage and inspire innovation. We work in three roles: as an innovation partner working with frontline organisations to design and test new solutions, as a venture builder supporting new and early stage businesses, and as a system shaper creating the conditions for innovation.

Harnessing the rigour of science and the creativity of design, we work relentlessly to change millions of lives for the better. Find out more at nesta.org.uk.

About The Behavioural Insights Team

The Behavioural Insights Team is the world leader in applying behavioural science to public policy challenges in order to strengthen communities and improve lives.

We design and rigorously test new ideas across a range of areas such as health, crime and education, to establish what works and what doesn't. We have helped Tuberculosis patients take their medicine; reduced police susceptibility to cyberattacks; and helped organisations close their gender pay gap.

Examples of projects you may work on:

• Working with employers to prototype solutions to decrease age bias against older workers in recruitment. As well as supporting an overarching design process you would be expected to play a key role in prototyping and UX and digital design of an employer-friendly toolkit and other potential solutions.
• Supporting the Gambling Unit to research, design and test different strategies to identify risky play, alternatives to dark patterns and more.
• Advise and support projects around the world with designing and testing a range of different artefacts and touchpoints, from the redesign of waste bins through to variations on COVID communications, and more.

Your role

A Designer is a confident and competent practitioner who can work across the entire design process to develop solutions that meet people's needs and can have a positive social impact.

This role is part of Nesta's Design & Technology community of practice - which will provide peer support, professional development and line management - and be embedded into BIT. You will primarily work to support projects and people across BIT to grow their design capabilities and integrate a design-led approach into their work.

This role is for someone who has supported non-designers to integrate a design-led approach to meet the needs of end users and stakeholders.

The successful candidate will play a key role in project teams, providing hands-on support with research, prototyping and testing, as well as strategic support to integrate a design-led approach into the overall process projects follow. Beyond project support, in alignment with the capability building work of the Design & Technology practice, the role will be responsible for developing and delivering initiatives to grow design capabilities across BIT.

As a Designer, your work will involve using your expertise to:

• Work with and support colleagues and partners to integrate a design-led approach into their work with clients and partners.
• Plan, undertake and support user research to inform strategic decisions and the design of potential solutions.
• Design, develop and test potential solutions with end users, as well as encouraging and supporting others to do so.
• Facilitate workshops and design sprints to rapidly design, test and iterate prototypes.
• Produce design iterations from low fidelity sketches to functional prototypes.
• Support the end-to-end design of interventions often involving multiple channels, touchpoints and partners.
• Ensure BIT, Nesta and our partners balance the needs of end users with stakeholder needs and social objectives.
• Work with multidisciplinary teams to design, prototype and test solutions to social challenges.
• Facilitate and participate in collaboration, including co-design or multidisciplinary working.
• Contribute to the identification, development and pitching of new work.
• Contribute to improving BIT's and Nesta's approach to design and integration of design into our project methodologies.
• Support the overall delivery of projects, ensuring they are on time and on budget.

Minimum qualifications

• Experience in a design discipline, such as service design, user experience design, product design, etc - the ideal candidate would also have strong interaction design skills, as many projects involve optimising artefacts and touchpoints.
• Experience building the capabilities of people new to design and helping them to integrate design approaches into their work.
• Experience of guiding non-designers through a design process.
• Experience working on multiple design projects simultaneously that have met the needs of end users and stakeholders. Ideally working across the end-to-end journey of a service that involves multiple channels and touchpoints.
• Experience undertaking a range of activities from client engagement to user research, prototyping and testing.
• User research: Ability to conduct and plan for interviews, observations, ethnographic/immersive research and other research methods. While you are not expected to be a quantitative researcher within the team, you are expected to be comfortable using quantitative data to inform design decisions.
• Evidence and context-based design: You are able to work with others to use evidence (qualitative and quantitative) to inform the design of projects, products, and services. You can absorb large amounts of conflicting information and use it to produce simple designs.
• Prototyping: You have experience in using a variety of methods of prototyping and user testing; and know how to choose the most appropriate ones. You know how to solicit feedback to iterate on ideas.
• Communication skills: You can listen to the needs of users, stakeholders and partners, and interpret them in a way that is clear for both audiences. You know how to manage stakeholder expectations. You can be flexible and you are capable of proactive and reactive communication.
• Facilitating decisions and risks: You know how to identify key risks with a design and strategies, and adapt to them using a range of techniques. You can generate multiple solutions to a problem and test them.
• Community collaboration. You know how to work collaboratively within a group, actively networking with others and varying feedback for the appropriate time to ensure the discussion sticks. You can use your initiative to identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them.

Desirable

• Experience combining behavioural science and design approaches.
• Experience of applying agile, lean and design thinking principles.
• Experience of creating functional prototypes using code or other technologies.
• Experience of designing with a social purpose.

What we offer

Salary: circa £43k plus an array of benefits, including health cash plans, dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, eyecare vouchers and more.

Location: This role is based in Blackfriars, Central London (hybrid working arrangement). You must have the right to work in the UK without visa sponsorship.

Term: 12 month fixed-term contract, with possibility of extension.

Hours: This is a full-time role but we offer a range of flexible working arrangements and encourage our people to take advantage of them. Many do.

Making an application

To apply for this role, please submit your application before 8:00am on the 3rd May 2022.

There will be two rounds of interviews. The first will take place w/c 9th May 2022. And the second round is currently scheduled for w/c 23rd May 2022.

At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results.

We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop.

This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful.

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part-time hours, job shares and other arrangements.

Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you'd like to explore.