King's College London

About Us

King’s Digital Lab (KDL) is a Research Software Engineering (RSE) team within King’s College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Our focus is on designing and implementing systems, infrastructure, tools, and processes to produce high-quality digital scholarly outputs. At KDL, we embrace a collaborative and open culture, fostering co-research as new tools and methods emerge.

KDL supports an inclusive culture and celebrates the diversity of our team. We are a small team that emphasises inclusivity and trust in our staff. We embrace flexible working, including flexible hours and extensive hybrid working – 80% remote and 20% on campus is typical. When in-person, we are in a small open-plan office within King’s busy Strand campus. Whether remote or in-person, we support our staff to ensure they have the right equipment to work safely and effectively.

This flexibility requires mutual trust. Our team members do much of their work independently and we rely on each other to work collaboratively at a distance, checking in and coordinating according to project and team needs.

We encourage applicants to read our blogs to understand more about the culture and working environment.

About the role

As a Research Software UI/UX Designer, you will be responsible for conducting project research, developing user journeys, creating design concepts, and potentially contributing to the frontend development of web tools and online projects depending on your skills. You will collaborate closely with analysts and software engineers to merge project requirements and user insights, designing and implementing effective information architecture and interfaces across various projects. Your primary focus will be on driving innovation, maximizing impact, and enhancing public engagement, all while adhering to industry standards and accessibility guidelines. You will ensure that every output is not only fully functional and user-friendly but also aesthetically exceptional. Your ultimate goal is to produce outputs of the highest design quality, continuously pushing the boundaries of what is possible and setting new standards for excellence.

In addition to the core design and development responsibilities for research projects, you will be able to develop a personal research agenda and explore opportunities to connect this to external funding and work with academic colleagues. Within this role, you will have opportunities to expand your skills working with new and emerging technologies across multiple disciplines and sectors and explore opportunities connecting this to external funding and collaborating with academic colleagues.

Our projects typically span several years, with periods of high and low activity. This means you will be engaged with multiple projects at any given time, across a range of disciplines, supporting academic partners to explore their research questions. Combined with an Agile approach to project management, this offers variety – both in the projects themselves and in the approaches and tools you use.

Success metrics are related to the research question the project is seeking to answer. Most of our work is funded by public research councils. While this means complying with regulatory reporting requirements (e.g. tracking time for charging purposes), it also means you will have opportunities for significant intellectual engagement. You will work with partners to determine the best approaches to meet their requirements, adapting as the project develops.

That collaborative engagement means the diversity of our team is especially important. We welcome applicants of all cultures and backgrounds and value the contributions that a variety of perspectives can bring. We encourage candidates with questions about flexible working options or reasonable accommodations to get in touch to discuss.

Additional references:

https://zenodo.org/records/2564790#.YemcNS-l1B0  https://github.com/kingsdigitallab/sdlc-for-rse/wiki/RS-UI-UX-Designer

This is a full time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite  contract.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Significant experience in UI/UX design, with a portfolio that demonstrates attention to detail, describing your contribution, analytical and design thinking with strong supporting visual examples showing process and high-quality outputs.
2. Proficiency in information architecture, visual design, usability, and digital accessibility. Ability to incorporate insights into designs and validate them through iterative testing and feedback.
3. Proficiency with design and prototyping tools such as Figma to produce wireframes, low-high fidelity mockups and understanding of HTML, CSS to produce prototypes.
4. Understanding of design standards and processes, contributing to evolving design approaches. Ability and desire to stay updated with new and emerging technologies, methods, and standards, including staying current with industry trends and being continuously motivated to improve skills and knowledge.
5. Capable of working both independently and collaboratively with internal team members and partners, building strong partnerships and engaging them around your work.
6. Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with various partners.
7. Strong organisational skills with the ability to prioritise and juggle multiple streams of work. Demonstrated multi-tasking and time management abilities.
8. An active and avid problem solver with a strong ability to handle and simplify complex problems.

Desirable criteria

1. Experience in setting up design system components, contributing to design strategy processes
2. ​Experience in working in agile environments (e.g. Agile) and/or experience working with research software engineering teams.
3. Experience conducting user research interviews and testing
4. Working knowledge of web development (HTML, CSS and Javascript) to build outputs
5. Professional experience or qualification in design, ideally working in a research & development role (in any sector, e.g. cultural heritage, industry or academic)

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, a portfolio highlighting at least 2 projects that demonstrate and describe your design thinking and process with visual example, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘ How we Recruit’ pages.

Please note interviews are scheduled to take place on 23 July.