User Researcher - Intellectual Property Office

Description

Summary of the work To work on a number of services within the IPO's transformation programme. The User Researcher will form part of a core product team in the development of digital services for internal and external users in the application and management of Intellectual Property rights. Specialist role User researcher Expected Contract Length 6 months with possibility of extension Latest start date Monday 13 August 2018 Maximum Day Rate Up to £500 Who Speclialist Work With Working with a multi-disciplinary agile service design team, including UX designer, business analyst, architect, product manager, service owner What Specialists Work On Undertake Discovery research with new and existing users for new service developments. Develop and implement User Research plan for Alpha development phase. Work with UX designers, product managers and analysts to understand and identify user needs Perform ad hoc research inline with Change Proposals and/or for existing services Provide advice/support to user researchers within the team Skills & Experience • Proven experience of autonomously designing, facilitating and analysing a wide range of qualitative and quantitative user research methods. • Experience and understanding of strengths/limitations of research methods and proven experience of presentation of user research findings in a range of formats and context. • Proven experience of working in an agile development environment with designers and developers and product managers to create new digital products and services as outlined in the Government's DSS. • Proven experience of working closely with the product team on rapid prototyping, validating user needs and prioritising user stories with the product manager. • Proven experience researching and assessing requirement for assisted digital support and users with accessibility requirements. • Proven experience of understanding user needs for web content, tools and transactional services, especially those with the most complex user Nice to Haves Assessing user needs for software services, system-to-system integrations and APIs. Work Location Intellectual Property Office, Concept House, Cardiff Road, Newport, NP10 8QQ Working Arrangments Monday to Friday. Business users on site, some travel will be required to customer locations. Travel costs for visits to other sites/locations will be met providing they are in line with government travel and subsistence policies Security Clearance A minimum of BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standard) will be required to commence work No. of Specialists to Evaluate 3 Cultural Fit Criteria • Share knowledge and experience with other team members • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 65% Cultural fit 15% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please can you confirm if this role falls inside / outside IR35? As we will be contracting for outcomes this will not be considered Contingent Labour and therefore fall outside of IR35. 2. Please can you confirm if there is currently an incumbent in this role? I can confirm that there is not an incumbant in this role. 3. Please can you let me know if you would consider a UX designer we have worked with on multiple government projects who can also be a User Researcher and supply user research to the designers and fully understand the needs and processes? A sound understanding of the role of UX service design in government projects is beneficial to this position. However we will be scoring candidates based on their skills and experience in the discipline of User Research. 4. Please could you provide clarification around the follwing skills/experience point "Assessing user needs for software services, system-to-system integrations and APIs." Can you clarify which types of users you mean in this context? Is it developers implementing integrations and APIs, or the users themselves, or another type of user or users? In this point we are interested in experience of user research into the needs of software developers seeking to implement an API which users would in turn use to access IPO online services. The developers in question could be as part of an in-house team building a bespoke solution or employed by a 3rd party software provider providing a solution for a range of clients. 5. Please can you confirm if there is a possibility of remote-working for the successful candidate on this project ? We expect the successful candidate to work out of our office in Newport embedded as a member of our User Research team. Customer engagement work will also involve travel to other locations in the UK (most commonly along the M4 corridor and London). We are content for user researchers to work remotely or from home on occasion where they need to focus exclusively on a specific task or document. e.g. a research plan or testing report. The bulk of time would be spent at the office in Newport though.