Senior UX Designer (FTC)

We are seeking an experienced Senior UX Designer to join our global UXD practice at Springer Nature and work within the Research Integrity Technology Programme. This role is to cover maternity leave for 12 months.  

As a key member of our product team, you will be responsible for shaping and leading the user experience of innovative research integrity products, contributing to programme goals and priority decisions to support technology teams in delivering valuable impact. This role will assist the Product Manager in designing processes and experiences that ensure the scientific integrity of research throughout its publication lifecycle. You will leverage innovative technologies such as AI and automation, as well as traditional publication processes to help ensure scientific publishing in our journals is of the highest standard and protected from bad actors. 

The role is both challenging and highly rewarding, offering the chance to shape innovative products that uphold Springer Nature's high standards of research integrity, solidifying its reputation as a trusted source of scientific knowledge.  

About Springer Nature 

Springer Nature is a global scientific publisher helping to advance science and accelerate solutions to address the world’s urgent challenges. With origins as far back as 1842 (Springer) and 1867 (Nature), content has been published from multiple nobel prize winners including Darwin and Einstein. Examples of published research include the first physical sequencing of the human genome to COVID-19 studies, making over 70k articles and books free to access.  

Some facts: 

• In 2022, there were 1.5 million research submissions, and 410,000 articles published. 

• There are over 5 million articles in more than 3,000 scientific journals and 3 million chapters in more than 190,000 books. 

• Springer Nature is a leading publisher of Sustainable Development Goals content with more than 800,000 articles and supports the SDGs in how we work - Springer Nature has been carbon neutral since 2020. 

Visit sndigital.springernature.com to learn more about who we are and what we do. 

About you 

To be successful in this role you will need to have the following: 

• Multi-year experience of UX design in a senior capacity. 

• Accomplished critical thinking, analysis and sound decision-making as well as experience deploying diverse UX design and research methods and techniques. 

• Experience working with stakeholders and non-designers and have an empathetic, articulate and open communication style. 

• Experience running UX research independently, or in a leading role as part of a team. 

• Great user empathy and focus on creating value for them. 

• Adaptable working style that is comfortable with uncertainty (for example, AI development can be unpredictable). 

• A curious and ethical mindset, an interest in research integrity and a commitment to responsible AI use. 

• Preference to working in a collaborative (remote and in-person) team, where there is collective ownership of the product. 

• Good time management skills enabling you to work with multiple teams and products. 

• Comfortable getting involved with every stage of the UX lifecycle and experienced at planning UX strategies. 

• Awareness of your strengths and ability to recognise opportunities to learn and improve. 

What you’ll be doing 

This role is a terrific opportunity for friendly, curious people who want to get involved in our work and develop our culture and help make Springer Nature Digital a place where people and ideas can thrive. 

Within 3 months 

Get settled: 

• Get to know Springer Nature as a business and the groups within it. 

• Learn Research Integrity principles and practices and gain an understanding of how such principles may be breached. 

• Become familiar with products/tools that the teams have been working on, how they do it and how it’s going. 

• Understand the UX research that has been done and the context/history of it. 

• Meet the stakeholders from across the business and understand their experience, background and ambitions. 

• Work with your Product Manager and get to know your UX peers and community. 

• Plan, conduct and share UX research. Engage with users to understand their needs and preferences, influencing product development and ensuring customer satisfaction. 

Within 6 months 

Be involved: 

• Champion Research Integrity at Springer Nature. 

• Establish design prioritisation, reviews, sharing and delivery processes, keeping user-centred design as part of the team culture.  

• Know where there are gaps and assumptions in UX research. Know the relative risk and potential effort of each that is clearly laid out in a plan for the foreseeable future.  

• Ensure that strategic work with stakeholders is informed by UX research and design outcomes. 

• Ensure that design is informed by UX research. 

• Motivate and involve team members in UX research activities. 

• Share insights within your team, with the wider UX community and beyond. 

• Become an active participant of the UX community and become an example to others. 

• Become an advocate for Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), not just in what we deliver to our users but also in how we work together. 

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