Designers are experienced practitioners who collaborate with others to tackle challenges faced by people and society. They work within a team to design and deliver public services. They do this by influencing the direction, assuring the quality of design delivery within their team, and by leading the end-to-end design of a chosen service. They are active members of a healthy User-Centred Design (UCD) community and culture at Made Tech.
- Works under general direction from Senior and Lead designers.
- Uses discretion in identifying and responding to complex issues and assignments.
- Receives specific direction, accepts guidance and has work reviewed at agreed milestones.
- Determines when issues should be escalated to a higher level.
Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only.
- Speaks to their line manager or another senior person when struggling in their team.
- Spots likely usability issues on a public sector website their delivery team has been tasked to replace.
- Produces designs for services using a predefined design system.
- Gives Adhoc feedback about a user interface and what to improve.
- Produces documents that clearly articulate how users can interact with a service.
- Comfortable showing in-progress design work
- Incorporates feedback from groups sessions about improving a specific way of working.
- Interacts with and influences colleagues.
- Has working-level contact with customers, suppliers and partners.
- May supervise others or make decisions that impact the work assigned to individuals or phases of projects.
- Understands and collaborates on the analysis of user/customer needs and represents this in their work.
Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only.
- Contributes to delivery team sprint planning when asked.
- Involves teammates to take part in design activities, such as crits.
- Encourages teammates to suggest solution ideas.
- Clearly articulates a design problem.
- Helps others understand why accessibility is important.
- Shares design thinking little and often within their team.
- Advocates for other UCD roles, eg. is involved in encouraging teammates to take part in user research sessions.
- Performs a range of work, sometimes complex and non-routine, in a variety of environments.
- Applies a methodical approach to issue definition and resolution.
Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only.
- Can take a design through from initial research, ideas, prototyping, testing and analysing what iterations are needed.
- Applies their design process to different organisations and problem spaces.
- Can quickly see changes needed to designs when observing user research.
- Can clearly communicate the user problems the team needs to solve.
- Has a sound generic, domain and specialist knowledge necessary to perform effectively in the organisation typically gained from recognised bodies of knowledge and organisational information.
- Demonstrates effective application of knowledge.
- Has an appreciation of the wider business context.
- Takes action to develop own knowledge.
Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only.
- Applies the GDS design system components to an existing software system.
- Describes how to begin to make a service more accessible.
- Aware of some research biases and how to try to avoid them.
- Structures their own work for others to give feedback.
- Awareness of the wider reasons a project is slower or not always concentrating on the user needs.
- Proactively takes time off for learning new skills or strengthening existing ones.
- Demonstrates effective communication skills.
- Plans, schedules and monitors own work (and that of others where applicable) competently within limited deadlines and according to relevant legislation, standards and procedures.
- Contributes fully to the work of teams. Appreciates how own role relates to other roles and to the business of the employer or client. Demonstrates an analytical and systematic approach to issue resolution.
- Takes the initiative in identifying and negotiating appropriate personal development opportunities.
- Understands how own role impacts security and demonstrates routine security practice and knowledge required for own work.
Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only.
- Clearly explains design decisions.
- Has a basic understanding of how to build interactive HTML prototypes.
- Pairs with software engineers to develop more advanced prototypes.
- Communicates clearly who a service’s users are and the current team’s understanding of the problems their user faces.
- Pairs with the product owner to create hypotheses the team wants to test.
- Takes part in sprint planning and communicates who they need to work with to achieve team goals for that sprint.
- Produces a prototype in time for testing. Can make iterations following analysis of testing.
- Books time off for learning, be that reading around service design or attending a UX conference.
- Ensures consent for research with users is fully informed and stored safely.