Senior Research Software UI/UX Designer

About the role

As a Senior Research Software UI/UX Designer, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the design vision and practice within KDL. This is a leadership position where you will guide design workflows, mentor junior colleagues, and collaborate across disciplines to deliver innovative, accessible, and impactful digital research projects. Your work will directly influence how research is experienced and communicated, ensuring that design excellence contributes to both academic advancement and public engagement.

You will lead the design team within KDL taking an inclusive approach to team culture and management. This includes guiding workflows, supporting quality and consistency across projects, contributing to planning and decision-making related to the design of research outputs as well mentoring and line-managing other designers.

You will work closely with analysts, developers, project partners, and other stakeholders throughout the research process, from design concept to technical development and delivery. You will develop requirements, help evaluate the technical feasibility of different approaches, and implement them in partnership with technical teams. This will involve designing and developing accessible user interfaces and advanced data visualisations for search-intensive and highly interactive research projects in digital humanities, social sciences, cultural heritage, and digital creativity.

Your skills will include strengths with industry design products and a solid technical understanding of HTML and CSS, alongside familiarity with accessibility web standards and qualitative usability testing approaches. Strong communication and collaboration skills will be essential, enabling you to work effectively across multidisciplinary teams and with diverse stakeholders.

You will have significant experience working on complex web and digital projects, including handling large and intricate datasets, navigating ambiguity, and adapting to evolving project requirements. You will be adept at collaborating within a team environment and ensuring that design solutions remain user-focused and technically feasible.

Your focus will be on maximizing both the end-user experience and the impact and quality of digital research outputs. An understanding of design principles will be essential along with an ability to present information in a clear, readable, and transparent manner. Interest in and/or skills related to one or more of KDL’s priority research themes would be desirable, particularly designing for complex data-driven or emerging interaction contexts.

In addition to core responsibilities, you will have opportunities to engage with wider communities within and beyond the institution, sharing expertise, supporting collaboration, and contributing to the development of KDL’s research and design practice. You will be able to develop a personal research agenda and explore opportunities to connect this to external funding and work with academic colleagues.

This is a full time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite term contract.

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