Service Innovation Designer

Overview

As part of the Innovation Team, this individual will serve as an internal user advocate and thought leader to help expand LWCC’s HCD capability. The role will lead and support service innovation projects – interfacing with internal and external stakeholders to develop and communicate insights, frame problems, identify opportunities and design solutions for customers.

Major Areas of Accountability

Design Research: Works with researchers to build an understanding of stakeholders, markets, and user experiences to inform design of service innovations that are grounded in a deep contextual understanding of customer needs. Supports a spectrum of design research activities, including:

• Research planning and preparation
• Secondary research of trends, products, and competitors
• Conducting user interviews and observation
• Data analysis
• Visualization of research outcomes (e.g., research insights, personas, customer journeys)

Service Concept Design and Development: Leads the concept generation, definition and execution (ideation) track of work within innovation projects. Supports and leads aspects of workshops and other co-designing activities with stakeholders designed to make use of research outcomes, including:

• Development of visual aids for facilitation (e.g., learning experiences and exhibits, informational diagrams, interactive workshop activities, dynamic user stories)
• Visualization codesign/workshop outcomes, including service concept illustration

Service Realization: Collaborates with various business stakeholders to design, develop, and launch new digital and analog services. Drives new service and experience design activities, such as:

• Development of prototypes to test aspects of service concepts with customers (e.g., storyboards, paper prototypes, wireframes, experience mock-ups)
• Development and maintenance of design requirements
• Usability documentation and testing
• Service touchpoint design (digital and analog) required for new or modified services

Support for the Innovation Team: Plays a key role in planning and build-out of a successful Innovation Team, developing an entirely new and exciting practice for LWCC

• Communicates effectively to ensure the Innovation Team’s work is understood across the organization and its stakeholders
• Plays a supportive role in organizational strategy development – vision, processes, people, pilot project pipeline, brand, and communications
• Helps sustain a learning culture by working to research, codify, and document foundational materials, systems, facility needs, and technology for the Innovation Team
• Serves as an ambassador for the Innovation Team within LWCC, externally at corporate events, and with LWCC partners and stakeholders
• Supports innovation training within LWCC as needed
• Collaborates within LWCC and with external partners on service innovations to transform the way we do business

Working Style and Fit

LWCC’s Innovation Team is a newly-formed, small but impactful team within the organization and we therefore are seeking an independent worker who is self-starting and thrives in ambiguity. Given the collaborative nature of our work, this person also needs to be an empathetic listener and effective communicator with teammates and business users throughout the company. From the services we develop to the ways we work in house, we are an adaptive organization, so this person should have a curiosity for technology, trends, and forces that effect how we do business, and continuously seek feedback for personal and team development.

As an organization, we consider how to advance our mission in everything we do, so the following qualities are important for fit:

• Alignment with company mission
• Comfort working in a visionary environment
• Goals-oriented mindset and results-focused performance
• Desire to help stretch and grow our creative capacity
• Consistent effort to learn, set personal goals, and work towards improvement of self, those around you, and those we support throughout our state

Preferred Skills and Experience

Strong communication skills

• Makes substantial effort to build understanding and bring key stakeholders along in the design process
• Explains, discusses, and justifies design decisions effectively while listening and taking input for constructive refinement
• Makes complex and technical information and language simple and accessible for non-technical audiences

Proven success

• Experience conceptualizing and developing service design initiatives from start to finish
• Proven history of delivering results on time and within budget

Mastery of Communication, Service, and Human Centered Design

• Experience with human centered design (design driven by user observation and in-context research)
• Excellent visual communication design capability
• Experience in prototyping and/or usability testing
• Record of user advocacy throughout design process
• Continuously searches for opportunities for self-improvement by staying up-to-date with cutting-edge communication and service design trends, communities, technology, and tools

In-person collaboration and workshopping abilities

• Visualization of research findings and facilitation of related discussions
• Workshop design and development support
• Real-time group creative collaboration and evaluation
• Structured ideation and concept exploration
• Workshop synthesis and reporting

Software proficiency (typical tools are listed below, but we are open to skills in other preferred design tools)

• Microsoft Office, Google Drive (Docs, Sheets, Slides), video conferencing tools (Zoom, Teams, etc.), virtual facilitation and collaboration tools (Miro, mentimeter, etc.) and basic audio/video editing software
• Adobe Creative Cloud (some combination of Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, XD, Firefly)
• Ability to learn new software quickly

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years experience in communication, UX, and/or service design role(s) with proven results.
• Degree (or equivalent experience) in graphic design, human-centered design, UX, human-computer interaction, or related discipline.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills; excellent verbal and written skills.
• Please note: a portfolio and references will be required during the hiring process