By: Onkar
Snook is on a mission to design a world that works better for people.
We work with organisations to design more effective services which help people thrive. We do this by engaging with users, building digital products, training our clients, and much more.
Snook started as a service design company in 2009. In the past five years, we have become a multidisciplinary team and scaled to more than double our original size, when we started up in Scotland. We are now based in Glasgow and London and our team is approaching 100 people. And we’ve worked with brilliant clients — from Cancer Research UK and Tesco to Hackney City Council and the Scottish Government.
One of Snook’s core missions is ‘Next Era Government’. We strive to ensure that human needs are at the centre of government services’ design and delivery. We are the User-Centred Design partner for multiple government agencies, including Home Office, Department for Education, NHS Digital and NHSX. Working in these sectors will give you valuable experience of applying GDS standards and preparing for GDS Service assessments. We also work with local government and third and private sector organisations.
This role provides the opportunity to work across these sectors while receiving knowledge and support from other Snooks. Where possible, we rotate people from one sector to another after 3 to 12 months (depending on the project), enabling people to develop in-depth knowledge of a variety of sectors.
About the role
As an Interaction Designer at Snook, you will be responsible for helping to design the best ways in which users can interact with services. Whilst the core of our work is designing intuitive, inclusive and accessible interfaces, our designers understand that often the most important part of this is communicating and collaborating with others.
You’ll be embedded in a team alongside other user-centred disciplines such as service designers, user researchers and content designers. Given the large scale of the projects we work on, you’ll also have the opportunity to work closely with other disciplines such as analysts, software engineering teams and policy experts too.
As an agency, we work with a broad range of clients and not everyone has experience of user-centred design. You’ll play a key role in championing the importance of this approach by working in the open and frequently sharing the thinking and evidence behind your work.
We strive to ensure that human needs are at the centre of government services’ design and delivery. We are the User-Centred Design partner for multiple government agencies, including Home Office, Department for Education, NHS Digital and NHSX. Recent projects our Interaction Designers have worked on include;
Working with the Department of Education to launch a BETA service that provides training to early career teachers, to better prepare them better for the job and help address the falling retention rate in the profession
Working with Camden Council to design a tool that supports people with disabilities and mobility concerns when travelling around the borough
Working with the Home Office, to use research and evidence to improve the design of critical internal case working systems that help to keep our country safe
Working in these sectors will give you valuable experience of applying Government Service Standards and preparing for Government Service Assessments. We also work with local government and third and private sector organisations too.
You’ll be part of a growing team, working alongside 7 other like-minded and highly skilled Interaction Designers. Whilst we may not all be working on the same projects, we host weekly remote meetups where we share our work, discuss its wider implications and provide support to one another. We mix with the other disciplines in the Digital team too, meaning you’ll have access to Accessibility specialists, Developers and Content Designers to help broaden your skills. You’ll have no trouble finding someone to help you navigate a new situation, receive constructive feedback on some work or most importantly provide enthusiastic advice on where to get lunch if you’ve decided to work from one of our studios.
All of our Interaction Designers are assigned a coach. Your coach will look after your wellbeing, help you set goals and objectives and provide feedback to help you grow.
Location: UK-Based – (this is a UK home based role, although you may be required to attend meetings at client offices or Snook/NEC sites once in a while)
Contract: Permanent
Salary: UK £32,292 - £45,908 with a London weighting of £35,100 – £49,900
Additional requirements: Right to work in the UK
This role requires our staff to go through the government’s Security Clearance process. In order to be eligible for this, applicants will need to have been a continuous resident in the UK for the past 5 years.
We’re keen to hear from a range of applicants, not just those who have worked in the design or creative industries. We’re also not expecting applicants to have experience working in government or the public sector too.
Essential skills and experience
We think these are an important foundation for anyone applying for this role.
Interaction / UX Design: you are a skilled practitioner with a proven track record of delivering interaction design work in varied environments. You understand how people interact with technology, the different ways they access it and why and when to use common design patterns. You know how to use basic graphic design principles on the web and have used artefacts like wireframes and prototypes to iterate your designs.
User-centred / evidence based design: you’ve designed new or iterated existing products based on quantitative and qualitative evidence. For example, you’ve used research from interviews with users, or data from analytics platforms to inform and continually make improvements to your designs.
Agile practices: you’ve got some experience working on projects that follow Agile or Lean methodologies. For example, you’ve worked in multi-disciplinary teams that focus on delivering one iteration at a time, or focus on creating an MVP (minimum viable product). We know every project can take a slightly different approach, but you should be familiar with these concepts and their goals.
Technology: You have a good understanding of how the internet works. For example, how web pages are created and served to users, and the technology constraints we need to consider when designing digital products.
If you’re unsure how your experience lines up, please drop any questions over to [email protected]. We’re a friendly bunch and here to help.
Desirable skills and experience
If you have any or all of the following too, we’d love to hear from you.
Multidisciplinary teams: you’ve worked alongside other disciplines such as researchers, content designers or software engineers / developers
Research and analysis: you’ve helped with the running and analysis of usability tests (e.g heuristic evaluations and A/B testing), and perhaps used analytics to pull together some insights too
Front end development: you know how to use front-end programming languages such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript to make basic websites
Accessibility: you’re familiar with the WCAG 2.1 guidelines and can design to meet AA standards
Industry standard software; you know your way around design packages such as Figma, Sketch and Miro, and understand some of their limitations
Workshops: you’ve participated and maybe facilitated some workshops with team members, clients or other stakeholders
Self managing: you’re able to manage your own time and budget on both client and internal projects, and understand how to prioritise tasks
Presenting your work: you’re comfortable in presenting your design work and explaining the rationale behind it
Public sector: you’ve worked on projects for central or local government, either on their back office platforms, or public facing services
A competitive salary
Generous holidays giving you 29.5 days holiday (including bank holidays), 4 of which are fixed to be taken at Christmas. Plus there are up to an additional 6 discretionary days for Christmas Closure
A supportive maternity package
We respect that people have commitments, providing flexible working hours through discussion
A bike to work scheme
Membership to the Headspace, the mental health app
We have an annual team-away day and quarterly show+tells; where we come together as a company, taking time out to learn, reflect, and eat snacks
We provide an annual training budget, which can be used for external opportunities from talks and conferences to more bespoke hands-on training. We have weekly learning sessions for all our team members, with a vast topic range
Access to Snook social clubs, and opportunity to run your own
Snook group pension plan
We support you with a Snook buddy when you join to get you started
How to apply
This is an ongoing campaign so please don’t wait to submit your application. We are sifting and interviewing candidates on a weekly basis. The vacancy will be closed when available positions are filled.
Please submit a CV, cover letter, your notice period and a portfolio of your work highlighting key projects. If you do not have a portfolio, we have created a simple template that you can use.
In your covering letter, please tell us a little bit about yourself, why you want to work at Snook and what sort of design problems you’d be interested in tackling with us.
We strive for diversity in our team. If we’re going to design services for the public we need to ensure our team is inclusive. Snook encourages applications from all backgrounds, abilities or impairments, communities and industries, and are committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities. If you have any questions please get in touch at [email protected]
Due to the current Covid-19 epidemic, we anticipate that all interviews will be conducted remotely. We will offer interviews at times that suit you, so if you have children, caring duties, or other circumstances affecting your availability for an interview, we’re happy to offer convenient times outside of work hours.
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