User Experience Designer - (US-CA-Mountain View - 94043)

Minimum Education: None
Jobcode: L:104550636
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Job Title: User Experience Designer Job Category: Usability Product: Windows Live Date Posted: 04/27/2009 Job Code: 255858 Location: CA - Mountain View Travel Required: Come join one of the most exciting user experience teams at Microsoft - a team whose day-to-day challenges include shaping the next generation of Windows Live Hotmail, Contacts, Calendar, Web IM, and more. Our Silicon Valley User Experience team is seeking an innovative, talented, and creative user experience designer who is excited about the future of web-centric communications. You should have a passion for social networking, be an email & SMS addict, and have a viewpoint on how Microsoft can re-invent how the masses expect to communicate with their families, business and professional contacts. Your primary responsibilities include working proactively with your Product Program Management Lead, other designers, cross-functional product teams, usability, user assistance and research to create, implement, and document interface designs for our web-based services. You will carry this through from concept to design, including sketches, flows, interactive prototypes, wire frames, final production-quality mockups, and assets. You will also be responsible for documenting guidelines in print and on-line. You should have a proven record of creating product designs that meet business needs, partner requirements, and user scenarios. You'll bring strong creative, conceptual, and problem-solving skills, plus the strong communication and presentation skills necessary to effectively present, explain, negotiate, and monitor design solutions. You must be able to work collaboratively with other designers, and work on multiple interrelated projects to completion on schedule. You must be able to work well with ambitious product teams driving features that will define how users find information, share, and communicate over the Internet. You must be able to assess data from multiple sources, synthesize it, and develop strategies for your projects. Your key leadership skills include the ability to set priorities with your manager, support current products/services while working on the next product version, and make smart choices involving competing priorities. You must be a fast learner who understands the importance of our collaboration products and technologies. The ability to work on multiple projects and assignments and to participate in cross-group activities is a must. You should feel confident in your abilities to communicate your viewpoint using innovative methods (comics, quick click throughs, diagrams etc) to help crystallize all parties involved around core experience concepts. You should have deep experience with competitive analysis, A/B testing, iterative design processes and have a demonstrated track record of using these methods to evaluate the effectiveness of experience design strategies. You should also have a thorough grounding in web metric analysis as a key input to understanding and benchmarking current site experiences. Members of the team use web metrics as a way to understand the how our products are used, potential user pain points and user delighters. You should be comfortable flagging areas for improvement and justifying your recommendations across key constituencies - program management, development, user experience and marketing. The on-going deliverables include (but not limited to): o Application Structure Maps o User process flows o Wireframes o Functional descriptions for interface elements o Rapid prototypes (Flash, HTML/JavaScript/CSS, and/or SilverLight) A highly tactical position, but with a multi-project focus, the User Experience Designer may be working on 3-4 user facing features simultaneously. Furthermore, you will be accountable for managing stakeholder expectations and furthering the mission of the Silicon Valley User Experience team within the company through thought leadership, quality delivery, and professionalism. Qualifications include degree in fine arts, interactive design, computer science, digital arts, industrial design or related discipline. Proven experience designing for consumer products across devices required.