Saturday, February 6, 2010

Interaction Designer – Boston MA and Chicago IL

Since 1992 InContext has used its Contextual Design methodology to design innovative solutions. InContext delivers strategic market characterizations, personas, new product concepts and design for consumer and business software, devices and consumer products. We take a holistic view—ensuring our solutions work for the users, the technology, and our clients’ business goals.

The Contextual Design methodology developed by InContext is a customer-centered design process taught in universities and used in companies worldwide. The techniques rely on extensive field data as the foundation for understanding users’ needs, tasks, and processes in order to design solutions that work.

InContext is looking for Interaction Designers with interaction and visual design skills to be based in Concord, MA and Chicago, IL. They will work in highly collaborative cross-functional teams on a wide variety of client projects. Candidates must be passionate about using customer data to create solutions that really meet the needs of users.

Good design begins with understanding how people work on a daily basis, which is why our Interaction Designers are trained in Contextual Design. Interaction Designers will participate fully in all phases of the Contextual Design process, including field interviews with end users, data interpretation, work modeling and consolidation, visioning, storyboarding, system design, paper prototyping and final visual design.

All candidates must have:

Basic skills
· Bachelor's or master's degree in graphic design, fine art, or interaction design
· Significant relevant coursework in the social sciences and humanities, especially anthropology or psychology, or basic sciences like biology
· 3-5 years of demonstrated interaction design experience
· Experience designing web or client-based applications (not merely web page design)
· Experience with the following (or similar) prototyping and design software: InDesign, Dreamweaver, PowerPoint, Photoshop, HTML, and CSS
· Willingness to travel on a regular basis, occasionally on short notice

Communication skills
· Ability to present and communicate design ideas to clients
· Ability to represent complex information simply in graphical format
· Special consideration will be given to candidates who speak more than one language: Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish.

Personal skills
· Quick and task focused: Must be able to work quickly under short deadlines, handle multiple tasks.
· Collaborative: Must be able to work in a highly collaborative team environment with clients.
· Clear thinking: Ability to quickly grasp diverse, sometimes complicated domains without previously having worked with them.
· Professional presentation: Should present well in formal and informal settings.
· Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to interact successfully and professionally with end users and clients.

Job locations include Boston and Chicago. While relocation is not currently available, we offer an excellent benefits package, competitive salary and an opportunity to learn from industry leaders.

Interested candidates must send a resume, a link to your online portfolio, a cover letter and salary requirements to careers@incontextdesign.com.

InContext is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

User Researcher/Work Practice Designer – Boston MA and Chicago IL

Since 1992 InContext has used its Contextual Design methodology to design innovative solutions. InContext delivers strategic market characterizations, personas, new product concepts and design for consumer and business software, devices and consumer products. We take a holistic view—ensuring our solutions work for the users, the technology, and our clients’ business goals.

The Contextual Design methodology developed by InContext is a customer-centered design process taught in universities and used in companies worldwide. The techniques rely on extensive field data as the foundation for understanding users’ needs, tasks, and processes in order to design solutions that work.

InContext is looking for Work Practice Designers (User Researchers) who have a strong interest in design to be based in Concord, MA and Chicago, IL. They will work in highly collaborative cross-functional teams on a wide variety of client projects representing different user activities and technology platforms. Candidates must be passionate about creating products, systems, and websites that really meet the needs of users.

Good design begins with understanding how people work on a daily basis, which is why our Work Practice Designers are trained in Contextual Design. Work Practice Designers will participate fully in all phases of the Contextual Design process, including field interviews with end users, data interpretation, work modeling and consolidation, visioning, storyboarding, system design, paper prototyping and final design documentation.

All candidates must have:

Basic skills
· Bachelor’s or master’s degree in the following or related fields: the social sciences and humanities, especially anthropology or psychology, or basic sciences like biology
· 1-3 years of relevant experience in one or more of the following areas: human-computer interaction, business analysis, information systems, user research or other related fields, product management.
· Willingness to travel on a regular basis, occasionally on short notice

Communication skills
· Ability to present and communicate design ideas to clients
· Ability to represent complex information simply in graphical format
· Special consideration will be given to candidates who speak more than one language: Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish.

Personal skills
· Quick and task focused: Must be able to work quickly under short deadlines, handle multiple tasks.
· Collaborative: Must be able to work in a highly collaborative team environment with clients.
· Clear thinking: Ability to quickly grasp diverse, sometimes complicated domains without previously having worked with them.
· Professional presentation: Should present well in formal and informal settings.
· Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to interact successfully and professionally with end users and clients.

Job locations include Boston and Chicago. While relocation is not currently available, we offer an excellent benefits package, competitive salary and an opportunity to learn from industry leaders.

Interested candidates must send a resume, a writing sample, cover letter and salary requirements to careers@incontextdesign.com.

InContext is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

INTERACTION DESIGN ENGINEER, Boston Area.

The Cisco Security Management User Experience team helps design elegant, powerful, useful, and intuitive interfaces to Cisco security products to help customers manage, configure, and maintain Cisco Security solutions. The role of the interaction designer is to design, test, and specify requirements for user interfaces and user interaction models.

Design work will focus on (but is not limited to) graphical user interfaces for client applications.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Prepare user interface specification documents consisting of wireframes, conceptual models, process flows, navigational maps, mockups, and/or interaction flow diagrams.

• Synthesize input from product management, engineering, quality assurance, customer support, systems engineers, customers, and other interaction designers to design new features and refine and extend existing features.

• Provide design leadership for one of Cisco's Security Management products including the development of design specifications for complex feature development.

• Contribute to, define, and enforce a user interface style guide that will be the foundation for all future security management products.

• The ideal candidate will have strong visual design skills and experience rapidly prototyping visual designs for products that implement complex policies.

• 3+ years in a senior interaction design, user interface design, human factors engineering, or information architect position.

• Proven track record developing, delivering, and documenting high-quality user interface designs for technically complex applications. Knowledge of security management and system administration tools is a definite plus.

• Exceptional writing and communication skills.

• An understanding of network security products, Internet standards and enterprise networking topologies is highly desirable.


Contact:
Brent Rogers
breroger@cisco.com