We seek a User Experience Lead to support TNC’s digital transformation that aims to enhance the Conservancy’s online experience while deepening engagement of supporters and driving revenue and influence. This position has the opportunity to help shape the digital future of our organization by leading and contributing to all user experience projects in support of our global digital properties.
As the User Experience Lead at The Nature Conservancy, this position will be responsible for the navigation, organization, interaction design, and business/user process engineering for TNC’s digital solutions, including TNC’s primary web property, Nature.org, and corresponding international sites. This position will apply user-centered design methods to translate user needs, business objectives, and technology capabilities into world-class user experiences. In addition, the User Experience Lead will play an active part in evangelizing the role of digital within marketing, membership, philanthropy, and communications. This position must have a strong understanding of creative disciplines, such as user-centered research, site development, and content strategy and design, as well as basic understanding of visual design and brand strategy. This role requires a collaborative individual who has strong communications skills and can build consensus while establishing a strong point of view.
The User Experience Lead will lead and execute testing and experience enhancements across TNC’s global digital properties in support of TNC’s marketing efforts. S/he will bridge strategy and design, push creative and digital boundaries, and always keep user experience top of mind. This is a hands-on position for a creative, conceptual thinker ready to define and execute a well defined, data driven user centric experience from start to finish. The User Experience Lead will work closely with the Conservancy’s Creative and Digital teams to drive towards Digital’s business goals while elevating the Conservancy’s brand as best in class. S/he will contribute to all digital user experience projects, including user interaction, navigation and conversion, etc. This is a full-time position located at The Nature Conservancy’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
RESPONSIBILITIES AND SCOPE
- Be responsible for the ongoing assessment of existing sites/properties for usefulness, usability, visual design, content, and branding
- Articulate objectives to guide the development of evaluation criteria
- Identify strategic opportunities for competitive advantage based on findings around current digital trends and data
- Lead participatory design sessions to build consensus among cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders
- Conduct user testing sessions and present findings and recommendations
- Lead behavioral in-context research events; analyze, synthesize, and organize research data into meaningful themes, categories, and visually compelling frameworks and behavioral models
- Identify opportunities to create business value and improve the user experience, based on user research; organize opportunities into visually compelling matrices or maps
- Lead stakeholder interviews, including: conducting, preparing notes, and analyzing findings to understand key success factors for a project or pursuit
- Facilitate user scenario planning sessions with both internal team and clients
- Drive ongoing development of personas and journeys based on research findings, and integrate personas with related deliverables such as opportunity maps
- Lead the development of engaging scenarios and frameworks that describe key aspects of a proposed experience, and how it reconciles business and user needs
- Lead the creation of visually compelling representations of the solution’s high-level interaction, navigation, and organization design (i.e., concept models)
- Create (and lead the development of) comprehensive sitemaps, wireframe systems, and process flows for large-scale solutions; present deliverables to senior stakeholders
- Manage operational level stakeholder meetings, including workshops
- Identify tools, templates, and techniques that evolve existing user experience and design approaches for the larger digital community at TNC
- Designs, manages and implements multiple projects by coordinating the work of other professionals inside and outside the organization.
- Leads marketing initiatives through collaboration with key stakeholders
- Assists with creation/administration of budget, evaluates results and develops corrective strategies, as needed.
- Responsibility and accountability for meeting strategic goals and objectives
- Opportunity to act independently within specific program or project goals
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience supervising staff and teams.
- Experience cultivating and managing client relationships.
- Experience in project management, developing marketing strategies and measuring results.
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in design-related discipline a plus: Interaction, Information or Interface design; Human-Computer Interaction; Design Planning; Graphic Design; Communications or equivalent.
- Candidates must be expert in user-centered design methods and techniques, such as Design Thinking
- Proficient to expert in: Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud, Microsoft Office
- Excellent analytical and process-oriented skills
- Excellent verbal and written skills
- Experience implementing, and managing multiple complex projects.
- Ability to work collaboratively on multi-disciplinary teams
- Experience managing client/customer relationships
- Experience presenting to diverse audiences including some or all of the following: internal and external executives, donors, members, board members, and the public or equivalent.
- Experience developing marketing strategies and measuring results.
- Prior experience in a non-profit preferred; 5 years experience in a consulting firm or agency experience a plus
- Multi-lingual skills appreciated.
- Multi-cultural or cross-cultural experience preferred.
- Strong awareness of current user experience trends
- Detail-oriented, independent and well organized with a blend of technical and conceptual skills
- Should thrive in an energetic environment and have the ability to make judgment calls and to respond tactfully in all situations.
- Solid knowledge of marketing and branding principles.
- Demonstrated ability to work in a team-based environment with internal and external partners.
- Demonstrated ability to conceive and write creatively for various audiences from technical information.
- Strong organization skills and attention to detail.
- Relevant technology skills required to prepare presentations and analyze data to construct reports.
Our commitment to diversity includes the recognition that our conservation mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of men and women of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and culture. Recruiting and mentoring staff to create an inclusive organization that reflects our global character is a priority and we encourage applicants from all cultures, races, colors, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military, protected veteran status or other status protected by law.