Sunday, September 20, 2009

Interaction Designer, BuyerZone.com

Responsibilities

Lead efforts to better understand how to make our customers happy.
You should know how to run an effective usability test, interview customers about their pain points and design a survey that helps a company better understand its customers. A big part of your job will be supporting business goals by identifying opportunities that come out of user research.

Work with business owners and software developers to define new features and functionalities for our web-based products.
The product development/user experience team at BuyerZone works at the intersection of business strategy, technical capabilities and user needs. You should have experience pulling product requirements out of these various groups and turning those ideas and rules into written specifications for our online products.

Design simple, effective user interfaces and product workflows.
You will need to have the skills, experience and talent to design new interfaces for our products, from conceptualization to implementation, using wireframes, interaction diagrams, sketches, story boards and/or simple to fancy mockups.

Encourage productive communication across a range of teams, colleagues and skill sets.
Do you like to wear many hats? Can you talk strategy with a product manager, then go back and forth with an engineer over how to best execute on that idea? You’ll need to be a superlative communicator who can synthesize feedback from a variety of sources and turn complex concepts into simple explanations for mixed company.

Stay on top of new technologies, interaction design trends, and best practices in usability.
This is a team that believes there’s gold in keeping up with the user experience/usability community and learning from the various outlets that provide insight into where the best approaches are going next. You should know who’s leading the conversation and how to plug into it.

Skills and Experience

• 3-5 years of interaction/interface design experience on web or desktop applications.
• Passionate about customer focused research and applying it to create effective interaction designs.
• Experience with working in a product development role. Gathering product requirements and creating documentation/defining requirements in support of development efforts will be a key part of this role.
• Strong foundation and skills in user interface methods and a strong visual and interaction design sense. In-depth knowledge of online products and workflow best practices.
• Working knowledge of design tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
• Understanding of front end Web development processes; HTML and CSS skills a plus.
• Experience working with Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Omniture and/or Unica NetInsight.
• Well-organized with strong communication skills and the ability to handle multiple tasks/projects simultaneously across multiple teams.
• Motivated self-starter with excellent problem-solving skills.
• Sample of Web site work and/or portfolio will be requested.
• B.A. or B.S. required, ideally in a design-related field

And Finally…


10 words that would describe an ideal candidate:
Talented, intelligent, fun, detail-oriented, web savvy, organized, collaborative, outgoing, inquisitive and empathetic.

P.S. – BuyerZone is an organization that embraces understanding the user experience in order to succeed as a business. We run regular usability tests of our products, have been conducting user surveys for almost a decade and have strong executive support of the user experience/product development function. This is a place looking for someone who can take full advantage of their talents and experiences to bring a new level of excellence to the company.

About BuyerZone
BuyerZone is the leading Internet company that helps business buyers and sellers find each other. As a top business purchasing matchmaker for small and large firms, our platform intelligently aligns buyers with relevant suppliers so everybody comes out a winner.
We help thousands of buyers every day, and have facilitated more than $13 billion worth of transactions since we launched our flagship Request For Quotes service in 1992. Our company has earned multiple accolades including being recognized as one of the Fastest 50 Growing Companies in the Boston area for five years in a row. Behind these impressive stats, we have kept a lively, start-up culture that thrives on innovation as we continue to create new products and services for the B2B lead generation and marketing space.
If "B2B lead generation and marketing" sounds stodgy, think again. BuyerZone is fast-paced, growth-oriented, energetic, fist-pump-in-the-air, smart, fun, imaginative, cooperative, customer-focused, hang-out-with-your-coworkers-worthy, and entrepreneurial.
People who are smart and hard-working but also know how to laugh and enjoy themselves and each other will click with the BuyerZone crew. Hardworking employees deserve pampering, so we enjoy year-round activities like Red Sox games, harbor cruises, and the weekly happy hours we affectionately call “Beer Thursdays.”
If you want to have a real impact in your workplace and are driven to succeed, we invite you to check us out.

Please send resumes, cover letters and/or links to a great portolio to jobs@buyerzone.com with “Interaction Designer” in the subject line.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Senior Product Designer, ICI, Waltham

The Senior Product Designer is a Human Factors generalist that creates
next generation web based products by working with marketing, product
management, and product development and ensures that a user-focused,
high performance, high commitment environment is developed and
maintained. Senior Product Designers drive the product design process
through all phases of the product lifecycle from product/feature
conceptualization through prototyping and detailed user interface/
functionality design to implementation and are responsible for
innovative information organization structures, interaction designs,
page-level content organization, navigation, and prototypes of
systems. The Senior Product Designer works as the chief user advocate
on each project team. They are responsible for promoting user needs
within an overall structure of deliverables that integrates the
recommendations of the project team regarding user experience. They
have demonstrated superior analytic skills and an ability to translate
business and task requirements into workable, efficient solutions for
the end-user. Likewise, they have demonstrated knowledge in using the
latest web technologies, including execution of Ajax, Java and GWT.


Required Skills:
• Must have a strong portfolio of past work assignments available.
• 5+ years experience in a commercial software product company.
• BA/BS or advanced degree preferred in Human Factors, Human-Computer
Interaction, Industrial Design, Cognitive Psychology, or a related
field or demonstrated comparable experience designing commercial
software products.
•Demonstrated current experience with designing B2B and B2C web-based
products or web sites.
• In depth knowledge of User Interface Design principles, Human
Factors, User-Centered Design Processes, Interaction Design
guidelines, Usability Testing Methodologies, web-industry standards
and trends, platform standards, software development process, and
prototyping/design.
• Ability to translate audience, technology and other key product
requirements into effective UI design solutions.
• Experience designing prototypes and writing design documents to
effectively communicate functional behavior to stakeholders.
• Experience influencing product development teams to implement
customer-centric solutions.
• Experience creating, running and analyzing user-centered test
regiments and incorporating these activities and resulting data into
overall UX design processes.
• Proficient using graphic imaging and design tools such as Photoshop,
Illustrator, DreamWeaver, MS Visio, MS Visual Design Studio, etc.
• Innovative, creative problem solver with an eye for detail and
accuracy
• Knowledge of web technologies such as application and web servers
(Knowledge of Java and GWT technologies a plus)
• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects and initiatives
• Experience performing UX within an Agile SDLC or variation thereof.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are a must.
• Ability to work in a dynamic multidisciplinary team.
• Proven team player.

• Knowledge in good execution of Ajax

• Working knowledge of HTML, XHTML and CSS coding.




David Gordon
ICI
651 Washington Street, Suite 210
Brookline, MA 02446
617-566-6121 x 304
617-566-6124 (fax)
dgordon@icionline.net
www.icionline.net