Interaction Designer

Role summary:
The Interaction Designer is a key member of the Product Design team. Working closely with Product Owners, development teams and and using their observation skills in a customer environment, the Interaction Designer is responsible for developing a software design which is intuitive and compelling. In partnership with the Visual Designer and the R&D team, the Interaction Designer will be responsible for bringing their solutions to reality.

As one of our Interaction Designers you will be expected to carry out research in order to understand the needs of the users, as well as continual validation of your designs to ensure they are appropriate.

Working as a member of the design team the Interaction Designer leads the charge on a design problem working collaboratively with other Interaction Designers, Visual Designers and UI Developers. Using whatever tools fit the job, the design team will prototype and validate designs iteratively to produce innovative and intuitive solutions to complex problems in the Dental industry.

This position reports to the Design Director and will require less than 25% travel with flexible hours.

Primary Responsibilities:

- Contextual Inquiry and Research - based on the direction of the Design Director, and inline with the stories selected from the backlog, the Interaction Designer should use best practices to observe users in their environment performing those tasks.
- Interaction Design - based on the selected stories and on the conducted contextual research the Interaction designer should design, prototype and document software solutions that meet the need of the user and business, in a compelling and intuitive way.
- Prototypes - Based on the problem to hand, the Interaction designer will help create prototypes that will be used to iteratively validate and evolve solutions. Anything from paper and sharpies to fully interactive web based prototypes - what ever is appropriate to gain the insight and validation on a design idea or solution.
- Story development - working with the Product Owner, who will be responsible for the Product Backlog and high-level story outlines, the Interaction designer should use their knowledge and research to refine the Stories so that they accurately reflect the needs of the user and the scenarios they find themselves in.
- Analyze current product range to extract best practice and user interface styles - A key part of the role will involve reviewing our existing product portfolio, understanding what we do well and what we need to improve, in terms of features / functionality, workflows and user interface designs.
- Liaise with customer base to gather information and requirements - Ultimately the customer is the target of our efforts. NextGen development must solve their problems and meet their requirements. The Interaction Designer will be responsible for understanding their needs and articulating them to the rest of the team.
- Analyze information fed back from the consultancy groups - As part of our fact finding activities we will utilize Voice of Customer / Consultancy groups to endeavour to understand user requirements. The Interaction Designer must be able to consider the advice and findings of this group when building requirements.
- Work closely with the R&D team - Although there will be many consumers of the information produced by the Interaction Designer, one of the key objectives of the role is to articulate the UX requirements to the R&D team so that they can implement the correct solution. To that end, not only will precise, accurate requirements need to be produced, but also the Interaction Designer will need to be able to work closely with the development group to ensure that the team can work efficiently.
- Present information to the internal stakeholders and external customers where necessary - It is important that the information that the NextGen team consumes is fed back to the project stakeholders so that they are able to comment on the direction of the project and, in order, they remain invested. The Interaction Designer will from time to time be expected to provide this feedback in both meeting sessions and presentations.
- Attend regular NextGen Development meetings - As part of the core team the Interaction Designer is expected to attend and contribute to project meetings.

Other key responsibilities

- Be aware of technology advances - new tech changes in the dental and IT world could mean changes in how we deliver our solutions. Interaction Designer should always be looking out for ways to make our solutions more beneficial to our user, extend our presence or increase our business using new technology advances.
- Program Evangelist - as a senior member of the Product Design team you will be expected to propagate knowledge of the program and its benefits to stakeholders and non-stakeholders alike.

Experience required:

- Three years experience working as an Interaction Designer or User Experience Professional, designing and developing software solutions
- Three years experience interacting with users, understanding their needs and translating into product designs.
- Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams without formal authority

Preferred Experience:
- Experience working in a Software Development environment using one of the AGILE SDLC methodologies.
- Experience working with a team of designers

Key Skills:
Communication
Problem Solving
Quality
Task Management
Creativity
Organization
Acute Observation Skills
Comprehension
Design

Deliverables:
Highly intuitive, attractive software
User Experience Vision
Prototypes
Information flows
Storyboards
Persona's
Wireframes
Screen mock-ups
User Interface controls and concepts

About Carestream Dental

Carestream Dental develops and markets an assortment of software applications and equipment used by Dentists, Orthodontists and Oral Surgeons throughout the US market. Our products - which sell under a variety of leading brands such as Kodak Dental Systems, Orthotrac, Carestream Dental, and SoftDent - help dental professionals streamline workflow and enhance patient care by enabling them to capture, share, and use images and information easily and effectively. Carestream Dental employs approximately 702 employees throughout the United States with a concentration of people in Atlanta, Georgia, Baltimore, Maryland, and Richardson, Texas.