Senior UX/UI Designer, AVP, Remote (Hybrid)

About Barclays UK

Barclays UK (BUK) is the consumer-facing arm of Barclays in the UK. We have a relationship with c24 million individuals, representing approximately 1 in 2 of every adult in the UK, as well as c1 million business customers, representing approximately 1 in 4 of every business in the UK.

Each of the markets in which BUK participates are undergoing unprecedented transformation from several forces including the increasing role that technology is playing in every walk of life; heightened expectations, leading to fundamental changes in behaviours; an increasing number of competitors, with highly varied business and operating models; and a pace of change that these markets have not experienced before.

BUK is committed to being at the forefront of this change; in particular finding every opportunity to leverage it to redefine the nature of the relationships that we have with our customers, as well as the business model through which we create value for our shareholders as a consequence of those relationships. We started that journey in earnest in 2012 with the introduction of our mobile banking app, which is now the leading digital banking platform in the UK. Through time, we have combined that with progressive and forward looking changes in the other ways in which we support our customers, radically transforming both our physical network and our virtual contact centres, as well as investing significantly in the support and encouragement that we provide to our colleagues to transform themselves so that their capabilities remain appropriate to the changing needs of our customers. We are especially proud of the c18,000 Digital Eagles and c15 Eagle Labs that now support our customers on this amazing journey.

About Insight and Design

As part of Barclays UK, we create award winning experiences for 25 million customers who use our services for personal and business banking. Helping people understand their money and empower them with the right tools.

At Barclays we are redefining the future of finance, and are proud to be an inclusive, diverse, and vibrant company - we are constantly identifying and acting on opportunities to bring the business into the future of digital banking. The team is comprised of researchers, designers, and developers from multiple disciplines all focused on making money work for our customers.

Overall purpose of role

This is a mid-level position, the role reports directly into the Design Principal, with minimal support and can influence and mentor others, its purpose is to:

• Hands-on creation of human centred designs that meet customer needs and deliver the 'Best of Barclays' for our customers and clients across Barclays UK.
• Have responsibility for the design, creation of and enhancement to services across both digital and non-digital customer experiences, ensuring the project is creating a solution which desirable, feasible and viable.
• Develop meaningful partnerships with key stakeholders at a Sub-Pod and Feature Team level to develop design concepts and deliver key design assets
• Deputising for the Design Principal in key Sub-Pod governance meetings to represent and advocate for customer-centric design with senior stakeholders
• Identify and compare the best processes or design methods to use, including measuring and evaluating outcomes and help to embed good practice within teams.
• Support the business to make important decisions based on customer or competitor insight, helping the business understand the risk of any compromises to the customer experience.
• Work for customers and front-line colleagues to deliver best in class experiences, which are well informed through research driven insight, working closely with the Product, Proposition, Technology and Channel teams within the business area to ensure the customer, colleague and business strategy have a joined-up approach.

Key Accountabilities

• Delivering consistent, excellent, customer-focused design solutions
• Lead projects, taking responsibility for communication and planning design activities
• Proactively collaborating with colleagues across the business and joining the dots where needed
• Managing stakeholder's expectations and priorities
• Adhering to human centered design practices
• Keeping abreast of best practices in design led thinking and applying those as a leader both internally and externally
• Be a champion of trialing new and relevant design methodologies and practices and promote across the business
• Create and review design specs for developers (across app and web)
• Ensure the quality of design is high, adhering to design language and challenging when appropriate
• Initiating, acting on and briefing in user research ensuring the right questions are being asked at the right time
• Leading by example and managing junior members of the team where needed

Stakeholder Management and Leadership

• An ability to influence stakeholders who may hold competing objectives to gain support and alignment will be essential.
• It will be essential for the role holder to have expert facilitation skills to drive integrity and bring diversity of thought to design by embracing different perspectives and building spaces for creative expression and challenge. Using strong interpersonal skills to lead in difficult conversations.
• Expertly actively listen to the needs of technical and business stakeholders and interpret them clearly for both audiences.
• Actively networking with others to build trust and strong stakeholder relationships with the ability to engage the right people at the right time to help support business decision making. Use initiative to identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them.
• The role holder will have an ability to work with higher impact or more complex risks. Knowing how to build consensus between services or independent stakeholders and lead others to make good design decisions, understanding how to apply different risk methodologies in proportion to the risk in question

Decision-making and Problem Solving

• The role requires a working ability for balanced decision-making and strategic thinking.
• It will be essential to know how to design systems for use across multiple services and can identify the simplest appealing commercially viable approach out of a variety of options
• The role holder will need to know how to identify constraints and communicate about these and work within them.
• It will be critical to have the skills to challenge the validity of constraints and ensure standards are being met to drive an exceptional customer experience.
• The role holder will be required to actively identify and prioritise problems, whilst laying out options and recommendations.
• They will lead the design and implementation within a project, directing the evaluation of strategies and policies to ensure business requirements are being met whilst also advocating for the customer experience.
• It will be essential that the role holder challenges assumptions by championing when further understanding is required through hypothesis exploration, with the ability to use in-depth analysis with interpretative thinking to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• A strong understanding of the agile methodology and the ways to apply the principles in practice will be important for the role holder to be able to champion iteration and the importance of failing fast.

Risk and Control Objective

Ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise Wide Risk Management Framework and internal Barclays Policies and Policy Standards.

Person Specification

• Exceptional communication skills in both written and verbal formats with a focus on fine detail.
• Ability to effectively liaise with team members and clients to ensure that high-quality end-user designs meet requirements.
• Highly creative, innovative, and literate, with the ability to produce quality specifications, workflows, and communications.
• Design and spatial skills to gauge the usability of a feature or application.
• An open, flexible, and adaptable mind-set to cope with a rapidly changing set of tasks in an area of emerging, new technologies.
• Good time management skills, ensuring that deadlines are met and not impacted by changing priorities.
• Self-motivated and results oriented, someone who thrives working in a fast-paced environment.
• Innovative and creative, with a concise and effective approach to problem-solving
• An aptitude for using a logical, step-by-step approach to ensure designs are user friendly and simple for end users.

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

• Experience of designing user centred digital experiences, with a portfolio showing examples of your work
• Awareness and interest in UX principles and application to design
• Have some experience working with briefs, data and user research
• You have worked in a team and have the ability to engage with a wide range of people, and are not afraid to call out when things aren't going right.

Desirable skills/Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience as a Graphic or digital designer
• Proficient in design software (e.g. Figma, Adobe)
• Knowledge of HTML/CSS; JavaScript is a plus

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