SERVICE DESIGN CONSULTANT (User Experience Designer)

• Job ID: 51016
• Job Category: Project Management
• Division & Section: Transportation Services, Policy Data & Strategic Initiatives
• Work Location: Metro Hall, 55 John Street + Remote
• Job Type & Duration: Permanent, Full-Time
• Salary: $93,734.00 - $123,449.00, TM5025, Wage Grade 6.5
• Shift Information: Monday - Friday, 35 Hours Per Week
• Affiliation: Non-Union
• Qualified List will be established to fill permanent and temporary positions.
• Number of Positions Open: 1 
• Posting Period: 18-FEB-2025 to 11-MAR-2025

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced User Experience (UX) Designer to join the MOVE digital product team.

MOVE is an internal web application and data platform used by hundreds of City staff to make sense of vehicle, cyclist, and pedestrian traffic volumes and collisions.

Our goal is to empower City staff with data to make better, more proactive decisions so that Toronto's transportation network is safe, efficient, and equitable for all.

You’ll join a product manager, three web developers, and a data engineer to build and support a growing ecosystem of data visualization and data management tools.

Building on our success to date, we’re looking for candidates with a strong research mindset and a solid user interface design skillset to support our growing product delivery team in designing high-impact, highly functional, and delightful tools.

We’re looking to reestablish UX research in every aspect of our product delivery work. We want to deliver the best internal tools for transportation planners, engineers, and operational staff, so they can make the City of Toronto’s Vision Zero commitment a reality. We believe that putting people at the centre of our design process, and solving the right problems, is the key to success.

We leverage human-centered design practices to deliver tangible impact to those living in the largest city in Canada. We work with modern open-source technologies, in the open (on GitHub!).

The MOVE digital product team is part of the Transportation Data & Analytics unit, one of the largest public-sector Data & Analytics teams in Canada, established as a hub for data analytics, data science, data collection and data management.

VIRTUAL INFORMATION SESSION

Join Us!

If you are interested in learning more about the Service Design Consultant role, you can participate in a virtual WebEx information session with Maddy Ewins, Senior Project Manager on Friday February 28, 2025 from 12:00 P.M. - 1:00 P.M. You will have the opportunity to ask questions related to the position, working for the City of Toronto's Transportation Services Division, as well as the City's application process.

Please register to participate in the information session using this link:

https://toronto.webex.com/weblink/register/re39d268f8347dbd8158b9a4f7f71c34d

Your name and email are required for registration, but they will remain private during the session.

Job Responsibilities

You will own research, design, and user testing. We envision this role to be roughly distributed between UX research (~40%), UI/UX design (~40%), and service design (~20%); although activities will vary depending on project needs.

• Represents the voice of the user
  • Plans, organizes, and conducts user research to identify and understand internal and external user groups.
  • Conducts user research to understand how Transportation Services staff use transportation data for project, policy, and design decisions.
  • Conducts user research to understand user needs, pain points, and opportunities.
  • Produces high-quality artefacts to communicate and socialize research insights.
  • Collaborates with UX and service design teams across the organization to share research insights.
     
• Owns the product design lifecycle from discovery to shipping high-impact, functional, and delightful tools and experiences
  • Synthesizes complex user research findings for solution definition and prototyping.
  • Collaborates closely with product manager and web developers to take solutions from design, prototype, test, to implementation.
  • Participates in the design of all aspects of the user experience (e.g. user interface (UI) design, UX writing, content design, information hierarchy, accessibility, colour theory).
  • Produces prototypes, wireframes, and high-fidelity design mockups.
  • Embeds service design, user experience (UX) and lean concepts into the product lifecycle, including rapid prototyping and user testing.
  • Plans and facilitates co-design sessions.
  • Builds, maintains, and implements a design system and standards, coordinating with corporate standards as appropriate.
  • Designs back-office processes and policies to support data lifecycles.
     
• Uncovers and addresses usability issues and continuously improves existing tools
  • Maps user-centered current state to identify opportunities to improve the end-to-end user experience of existing tools.
  • Conducts usability testing to facilitate tight feedback loops from development to delivery.
     
• Collaborates with the product manager to inform product strategy
   
• Champions user-centered design principles
  • Participates in knowledge-sharing initiatives across the organization to raise awareness and acceptance of user experience and service design methodologies and benefits.
  • Incorporates user-centered design methodologies in the development of programs, tools, and policies.
  • Introduces new and innovative perspectives to the City of Toronto’s design practice through the application of industry best practices.

How We Work

We are a cross-functional agile software development team; human-centered design principles and iterative design and development are at the centre of our work.

• You are expected to:
  • Engage in regular sprint rituals.
  • Collaborate and communicate openly across disciplines for effective product design, development, and delivery.
  • Be open and adaptable to changing requirements and shifting priorities.
  • Take responsibility for unexpected problems and questions as they arise.
  • Care about solving problems and building functional, sustainable, and pragmatic solutions.
  • Champion human-centered design practices across the organization to advance the state of in-house product development.
  • Stay current with new tools and techniques relevant to your discipline (time and budget are available for training and conferences).
  • Coach and mentor junior staff and students, as required.
     

• You will be expected to establish norms and practices to grow our UX design and research practice as a foundational part of our product planning. This could include:
  • Dual-track agile
  • Design reviews

Key Qualifications

1. Post-secondary education in a related discipline (e.g. human-computer interaction, industrial design, interaction design, information studies, engineering, psychology, social sciences) OR an equivalent combination of education and practical experience.
2. Extensive experience working as a key member of a collaborative, multi-disciplinary digital product team.
3. Considerable experience conducting user experience research through a variety of research methods and techniques (user research, usability testing, surveys, jurisdictional scans) and producing research artefacts and design documents (e.g. personas, journey maps, storyboards, ecosystem maps, service blueprints, flowcharts, wireframes, prototypes, mockups).
4. Considerable experience in user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design of production web applications.
5. Considerable experience using software tools to facilitate research and design (e.g. Sketch, Figma, Slack, Adobe Creative Suite, Axure, Balsamiq, InVision, Mural, Miro).
6. Considerable experience with design and workshop facilitation.
7. Excellent written and oral communication and interpersonal skills.
8. Ability to work independently with a high level of self-direction.

Knowledge of the following will be an asset in this role.

• A strong research and validation mindset.
• Knowledge of inclusive and accessible design practices.
• Knowledge of web accessibility standards (WCAG).
• Knowledge of agile methodologies.
• Knowledge of iterative design and development.
• Knowledge of service design.
• Knowledge of transportation planning.
• Experience with map-based applications.
• Experience with geospatial data applications.
• Experience with complex data visualization.
• Experience with transportation data.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

The City is an equal opportunity employer, dedicated to creating a workplace culture of inclusiveness that reflects the diverse residents that we serve. Learn more about the City’s commitment to employment equity.

Accommodation

The City of Toronto is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive organization. We are committed to providing barrier-free and accessible employment practices in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Should you require Code-protected accommodation through any stage of the recruitment process, please make them known when contacted and we will work with you to meet your needs. Disability-related accommodation during the application process is available upon request. Learn more about the City’s Hiring Policies and Accommodation Process.