Lead UX Designer

I. About the Position| Major goals and objectives.

Dotdash Meredith is the largest digital and print publisher in America. From mobile to magazines, nearly 200 million people trust us to help them make decisions, take action, and find inspiration. Dotdash Meredith has more than 40 iconic brands, including PEOPLE, Better Homes & Gardens, Verywell, Food & Wine, The Spruce, Allrecipes, Byrdie, REAL SIMPLE, Investopedia, and Southern Living. We are building engaging experiences that excite users and amplify the voices of our brands.

We are looking for a User Experience Design Lead to help drive and define the transactional experience and feature set across our portfolio of sites that meet users’ needs and our business goals. In this role, you will craft simple, functional, and elegant experience design solutions based on a deep and empathetic understanding of our users’ needs. Someone who can build partnerships and work collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives while simultaneously and vigorously championing the user experience.

​In-office Expectations: This position offers remote work flexibility; however, if you reside within a commutable distance to one of our offices in New York, Des Moines, Birmingham, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Seattle, the expectation is to work from the office three times per month.

As a UX Lead at Dotdash Meredith, you will be responsible for conducting user research, translating business requirements into concrete ideas, and delivering documented design files to engineering teams. You will own the design of our products and iterate upon it to ensure a great user experience.

To be successful in this role, we'd expect you to: 

• Thoroughly understand the wants and needs of our users. 
• Utilize the design thinking process to achieve business goals and produce user-friendly design solutions.
• Collaborate with product managers and stakeholders to translate user needs and business requirements into design deliverables such as journey maps, user flows, wireframes, and mockups.
• Build interactive prototypes suitable for validating design decisions with users.
• Cultivate internal knowledge around the design system and the content management system
• Develop and maintain detailed design patterns that scale across several product teams and world-class brands.
• Document design guidelines, share knowledge, and collaborate with the engineering team to ensure products ship on time and as designed. 
• Help lead our efforts to build accessible digital products (A11y and WCAG), building awareness, and accountability across the rest of our product organization.

II. About the Positions Contributions

Weight %

Accountabilities, Actions and Expected Measurable Results

50%

User Experience Design

• Use business requirements, qualitative research insights, and quantitative metrics to produce user flows, wireframes, prototypes, high-fidelity mockups, and rigorous user interface specifications.

30%

Collaborate with Editorial, Design, and Product teams

• Collaborate with UX research operations team on user research studies to validate assumptions, test designs, and understand user data.
• Understand the needs of the business and present design solutions to build consensus among a broad range of stakeholders.
• Participate in and lead brainstorming and critique sessions that foster big-picture thinking while identifying opportunities to raise the bar on the details.

20%

Process Management

• Collaborate with product, engineering, and the broader UX & Design Team to develop and implement process improvements and best practices.

100%

III. Minimum Qualifications and Job Requirements | All must be met to be considered.

Education:

Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent education and experience

Experience:

• 1-3 years leading projects, 5-10 years as a UX Designer

Specific Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong user experience skills including user interviews, usability testing, and interaction design.
• Experience designing, planning, and building interactive prototypes suitable for validating design decisions with users.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Familiarity with atomic design methodology and an interest in the challenges that come with building and maintaining design systems.
• Expertise in UX software such as Figma, Miro, UserZoom, etc.
• A solid grasp of user-centered design, testing methodologies, usability best practices, and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
• Basic HTML and CSS skills are a big plus.
• Be excited about collaborating and communicating closely with teams and stakeholders distributed across the country
• A strong portfolio of work showcasing user-centered design skills and processes.

% Travel Required (Approximate): NA