Job summary

At the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) our mission is to provide health security for the nation by protecting the public from infectious disease and external hazards. We are a trusted source of advice to government and to the public, focusing on reducing inequalities in the way different communities experience and are impacted by infectious disease, environmental hazards, and other threats to health.

Our mission is challenging, innovative and in the spotlight. We work to ensure our people have the diverse skills, experiences, and backgrounds we need to thrive, that our employees are representative of the communities we serve and feel valued and enabled to play their part in delivering our work.

Building on the success of embedding human-centred design within our COVID-19 response, the Customer Experience team has recently been established in UKHSA. The Customer Experience Team is a key pillar within UKHSA’s National Operations division, part of the Health Protection Operations Group, which delivers front line services to help keep the nation health secure.

The Customer Experience team will draw together experts in user research, content, interaction and service design, with an ambition to put people at the heart of service design and transformation to help UKHSA achieve its ambitions. Our vision is to create an organisation that puts user needs and insight at the heart of strategy, policy and service design and delivery.

Location

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) offers hybrid working – this means that whilst the role will be based in one of our offices, there will be opportunities for an element of working from home. UKHSA have office locations across the UK.

This role can be based at one of our UKHSA offices/locations (Leeds, Manchester, Totnes, London, Horsham, Cardiff, Bristol, Nottingham, Harlow, Liverpool, Fareham, Gloucester, Newcastle and Birmingham) with opportunities for an element of working from home.

You will be asked to express a location preference during the application process.
The balance between home and workplace working is to be agreed with the line manager, determined primarily by business needs and in line with departmental policy.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked from within the UK and not overseas. Relocation expenses are not available.

Job description

The Senior Service/Interaction Designer will support the development and execution of the service and interaction design strategy for UKHSA, ensuring design projects are rooted in a deep understanding of users and their needs, and ensuring quality, innovation, and creativity in how we approach all aspects of service and interaction design. 

This role involves providing strategy, guidance and support to internal teams across UKHSA to ensure that their policies, services and products are user-centred. The role will include designing accessible services that reduce friction and complexity across the whole service helping UKHSA to achieve its public health objectives. The Senior Service/Interaction Designer will set direction and embed good practice within the service design team, working with senior stakeholders and customers to develop design concepts and support them by finding solutions to complex problems.

The Senior Service/Interaction Designer will be responsible for attracting, nurturing and developing a diverse and talented workforce, promoting their professional development and managing day-to-day conditions to ensure their success.  As an experienced practitioner they will be comfortable assuring best practice, leading, coaching and mentoring others within the team to shape and improve how we work. They will also be comfortable coaching stakeholders from other professions and disciplines in service design and customer-centricity. 

The Senior Service/Interaction Designer will be an active part of the human-centred design community and as a senior leader will actively encourage, facilitate, and demonstrate sharing of insights and practices across the community and organisation.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide design leadership and hands-on service/interaction design for multiple projects and portfolios of work, supporting service transformation by working with stakeholders and customers to develop design concepts and support them by finding solutions to complex problems, balancing user needs with business, operational and technical requirements.
• Support the Head of Service/Interaction Design by acting as a recognised and credible expert in service and/or interaction design, convincing colleagues of the value of a user-centred, inclusive, and evidence-based approach to service design and delivery and influencing programme/project roadmaps to embed effective and user-centred design practice.
• Create, maintain, and make available to all, a central library of design concepts and patterns to share best practice, bring the UKHSA service and interaction design strategy to life, and help colleagues and stakeholders from other disciplines understand what service and interaction design is, why it’s important and how to work with designers.
• Support the creation of the UKHSA’s service/interaction design community of practice; actively contributing to creating the right environment and processes to establish the profession and an effective human-centred design practice within UKHSA.
• Improve design practice and ways of working by supporting standard definition and adhering to and ensuring consistency with professional, government and NHS standards and accessibility requirements.

COLLOBORATIVE WORKING AND PERFORMANCE

• Work openly and collaboratively by involving teams and colleagues from across UKHSA in service design and improvement; working with other professions to gather and analyse insights to identify common themes, pain points and user needs and communicate these with clarity and confidence to stakeholders to help everyone to develop a deep understanding of UKHSA’s users and create actionable strategic insights and service improvements.
• Represent UKHSA’s service and interaction design capability across government, NHS and the wider public health system. Proactively working across government departments to develop and promote excellence within the specialism and contribute to the cross-government and GDS communities of practice.

LEADERSHIP OF STAFF

• Role model inclusive leadership behaviours to promote a diverse, supportive, and inclusive culture, supporting a community of practise to thrive and mature within UKHSA.
• Foster a culture of continuous professional development, working openly and collaboratively to contribute to building the skills of all members of the Customer Experience Team, maturing the service/interaction design function, and developing the practical experience of non-specialists.
• Lead and manage change positively, championing and promoting a culture of imaginative thinking, learning from experience, expanding mindsets and genuinely listen to and encourage ideas from key stakeholders, partners, and colleagues.
• Line manage staff, undertaking the full range of line management responsibilities as well as providing coaching and support to staff across UKHSA; proactively develop, promote and monitor staff engagement and wellbeing measures, striving to make improvements, year on year.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The Job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary.

Person specification

It is important through your application and Statement of Suitability of 1000 words (max) that you give evidence and examples of proven experience of each of the following criteria:

Essential Criteria:

• Expert practitioner in service and/or interaction design with experience of using human-centred design methods and practices in large, complex organisations.
• Able to navigate stakeholder landscapes, leading and managing relationships with a variety of internal and external stakeholders with different reporting relationships to improve services and gain support for standards, design solutions, roadmaps, and ways of working.
• Able to select and use appropriate design tools and methods to explore service problems and opportunities across digital and non-digital channels as appropriate to a wide range of situations.
• Comfortable working with complexity, uncertainty, and organisational constraints.
• Able to explain the value of best practice service and interaction design and HCD ideas and concepts, in a way that other people understand, convincing stakeholders of various levels that user needs and user-centred approaches are the right way to design products and services; constructively challenging views and/or practice and effectively manage conflict to reach a positive conclusion.
• Ability to use prototyping techniques and methods to translate user needs into inclusive design concepts; able to demonstrate the value of prototyping to relevant teams.  
• Knowledge of the barriers to access which affect participation in public health interventions, able to demonstrate the importance of designing inclusive, equitable, accessible and sustainable public services, with understanding of best in class in inclusive service design.

Desirable Criteria:

• Project and programme management qualifications or equivalent experience for example Prince 2, Managing Successful Programmes, Agile PM.
• Experience in supporting user researchers to interpret findings and some experience in conducting basic user research e.g. user interviews and usability testing.

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• Range of health and wellbeing support