£39,100 – £46,000
London/Home-based
Fixed term contract for 12 months
Closing date: 18th June 2023
Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity for a User Experience Specialist in our Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA) to develop a deep understanding of the experience of users on the HLA’s learning platforms, and to introduce and optimise a range of support functions and services that will continuously improve User’s experience.
About Us
The Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA) as part of SCUK’s humanitarian department provides high-quality humanitarian capacity strengthening for the movement, as well as the wider sector.
The HLA’s mission is to enable people around the world to prepare for and respond to crises in their own countries, by providing quality learning opportunities. The HLA’s approach spans from focused needs-based learning in countries hit by crises to the huge international reach of our learning platform, Kaya. They are a global team that has a full suite of in-house skills to provide and develop the offer; technical and learning experts, platform specialists, a digital and design studio, communications support and more. The HLA enables SCUK to offer the most effective and impactful humanitarian capacity strengthening resource for both the Save the Children movement, the wider humanitarian sector and beyond.
About the role
The HLA’s platforms have been established and as of 2022 reach over 700k individual learners, with over 50 partners utilising an existing product. Individual learners benefit from hundreds of free, online and blended courses, while the existing products provide a low-cost but highly flexible and adaptable learning management system (LMS) to partner organisations. The next step in this journey will be for this new function to further scale the platforms and products, as well as launch new, commercially viable platform products for existing and expanded audiences.
The HLA’s Product Development function will be responsible for developing, managing and supporting the HLA’s flagship digital platforms, (Kaya and HPass); and the portfolio of paid-for products that they enable. It will consist of a team of technical specialists whose responsibilities span UX/UI development, feature delivery, the set-up and maintenance of the platform infrastructure and hosting arrangements, and individual user support; as well as end-to-end management of the platform products throughout their lifecycle, from ideation, through build and launch, to growth and ongoing technical support to the partners that utilise them in fulfilment of Service Level Agreements (SLA).
The User Experience Specialist will be key to achieving this. The purpose of the role will be to develop a deep understanding of the experience of users on the HLA’s platforms, and to introduce and optimise a range of support functions and services that will continuously improve this experience. You will also be responsible for the overall quality of content that is offered on the platforms, ensuring the marketplace offers a range of engaging, impactful learning opportunities in appropriate formats to the HLA’s global audiences.
In this role, you will:
• Be responsible for ensuring end-user input into the further design, development, and user experience (UX) of the Kaya and HPass platforms, to ensure they remain fit for purpose and user focused.
• Build strong linkages with the platforms’ user groups in order to identify needs and areas that are trending and to ensure quality learning experiences for those using the platforms.
• Ensure efficient systems and processes for the tracking and responding to individual users’ technical requests and queries are in place
• Develop and introduce new methods and/or tools to further develop the teams triage capabilities.
• Utilise data analytics solutions, establishing and monitoring user experience/satisfaction metrics, and developing methods and interventions to increase satisfaction rates.
• Develop guidance resources and promotional materials to support the best possible user experience on the platforms.
• Develop and maintain end-user support mechanisms, including a support chatbot, user tours, FAQs, embedded helpstrings, and other methods
• Create and manage a platform ‘user panel’ to collect UX/UI feedback and as a sounding board for new ideas. Conduct interviews, usability tests and surveys.
• Track, analyse and maintain an understanding of common issues/trends faced by platform users (through data analytics, recurring queries, key trends, independent UX and usability reviews) and work with the Platforms & Product Management Lead to explore, develop and test appropriate and lasting solutions to underlying issues
• Work closely with the Platforms & Product Management Lead to develop and prioritise the platform roadmaps, including proactively ideating, scoping and proposing technical solutions that satisfy identified user needs and business goals, managing projects where appropriate.
• Support the Product Development Lead in the creation and management of a user community, as part of a new product area.
• Support HLA colleagues in proactively ensuring a continued supply of high-quality content, informed and guided by needs analysis and feedback from users. This may include working with partners to negotiate free content, commissioning new content, or purchasing licensed content.
• Contribute to the HLA’s Content Strategy, including the auditing of content, advising on the updating/contextualisation and the management of content.
• Support the integration of the HLA’s platforms, to promote cross-fertilisation and strong UX.
About you
The ideal candidate for the User Experience Specialist will be someone who has experience in understanding and advocating for the end-users of digital platforms and/or products, and utilising a range of research methodologies and interventions to this end.
You will be analytical in their thinking, using data and insights to inform decisions, but also comfortable dealing with ambiguity.
You will be keen to actively listen to, empathise with and ultimately develop a deep understanding of the HLA’s end-users, and will take the initiative in developing effective solutions to meet their needs.
To be successful, it is important that you have:
• A solid understanding of user-centered design (UCD) principles and methods, with experience planning and conducting user research, user testing, usability and/or accessibility reviews.
• Experience monitoring and evaluating platform-related issues as part of a constant improvement approach.
• Experience administering or supporting a Learning Management System (LMS), preferably Moodle and/or Totara Learn.
• Familiarity with a range of online/blended learning methodologies, standards and formats that can be set up, managed and maintained using an LMS, and preferably learning accreditation and digital credentials such as open badges.
• Familiarity with learning authoring tools, eg. Adapt, Articulate Rise/Storyline, or similar.
• Experience with the implementation of learning and assessment quality standards.
• Very high digital literacy skills and the ability to quickly adopt new technologies and approaches.
• An analytical and strategic thinker with project management experience.
• Instinctively collaborative, with the ability to build effective trust-based relationships and networks, with strong partnership development and management skills.
• Has an understanding of GDPR and Accessibility guidelines and regulation
• Commitment to Save the Children’s vision, mission and values.
To learn more about the position, please visit our website.
What we offer you:
Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.
• We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
• We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. You can read more about our benefits here.
Please note:
To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.
Ways of Working:
Remote First – The majority of our roles can be performed remotely, however you may work from the office as often as you wish. Whilst you will be predominantly working from home, we may at times require you to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). Note: This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team. This is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.
On-site – There are certain roles that cannot be performed remotely and so your role will be based in an office location and you may occasionally be able to work from home.
Flexible Working – We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview**.**
Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:
Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be “Free to Be Me”. We are not looking for just one type of person – we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.
We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences – of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability – help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.