Job: Interactive Designer in Kitchener-Waterloo

Location: Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario

• Industry: Professional Services
• Status: Contract
• Contract Pay Rate: $28.00 to $30.00 / Hour

Our client in Kitchener/Waterloo is actively recruiting for an Interactive Designer to work with its firm in support of multiple projects.

Taking on this contract-based opportunity, the Interactive Designer will be responsible for executing a wide range of interactive, mixed media design projects for a variety of clients and diverse applications. The projects involved are to include eLearning modules, instructional video and interactive Flash presentations with SCORM compliant comprehension testing. The Interactive Designer will be required to create website designs and other web-based communication devices such as ad banners and Flash video / animation interfaces. He/she will use a wide range of applications including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Presenter and Soundbooth.

Reporting to the Creative Director, the Interactive Designer will work on a team, assisting with some high profile clients derived from various industries such as Retail, Tourism and Professional Services. He/she will work closely with a team of Graphic Designers, Writers and Program Managers and will assist in the creation and delivery of projects on a tight timeline.

The Interactive Designer is expected to make creative decisions regarding the editing of projects based on written scripts or input from the Creative Director, ensuring quality control and consistency of the final product. He/she will perform technical editorial functions including audio recording and editing, colour correction, graphic design and integration.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate must have 3+ years of proven work experience in graphic / web designing supported by a post-secondary Diploma / Degree in Graphic / Web / Multimedia Design. Candidates will have proven moderate knowledge of Actionscript and any experience with video (Adobe Premier or Final Cut) is an asset (although not mandatory).

Candidates must be fluent in the use of Adobe Media Encoder for video encoding solutions and compression in addition to being able to demonstrate an understanding of branding and marketing strategies and implementation. Candidates must also be presented as a strong team player, as an eager collaborator and active contributor to the creative team; a creative, highly organized self starter who works well independently.

The Interactive Designer must have a keen eye for detail, ability to handle multiple assignments, a strong work ethic and the drive and determination to get the job done.

To Apply

To learn more about this role or to find out about other exciting opportunities available through The Creative Group, please visit our website www.creativegroup.com or contact Malcolm Jasumani at 416.365.2010.

About Us

The Creative Group, a division of Robert Half International, specializes in placing highly skilled marketing, advertising, creative, web and public relations professionals on a project and full-time basis with advertising and public relations agencies, Fortune 500 companies and small to mid-sized firms. We are faster at finding you work because of our strong network – we reach out to over 12,000 creative and marketing hiring managers each week. In addition to our free job search services, we provide our candidates with access to competitive skills training, benefits and compensation packages. We encourage you to work with us to find out why Robert Half International again was named to FORTUNE® magazine’s “World’s Most Admired Companies” list, ranking #1 in our industry. (March 19, 2012)

To learn more, visit us at www.creativegroup.com or call 1-888-846-1668.

The Creative Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

May 2012 event: A UX Q&A

Wow, could we have gotten fewer actual words into the theme for this month’s event? I think not!

This month’s Q&A session is, surprisingly, a format that we haven’t explicitly done before.

Do you have questions about some aspect of UX, but haven’t had a chance to find answers? Now’s your chance. Whether you’re wondering how to quantify the usability of a product, or curious about what card-sorting is, there’s bound to be someone in our extended family of UX practitioners and researchers who can shed some light.

Why use a pencil and paper to create prototypes? How does multi-variate testing work? What’s the difference between a wireframe and a prototype? What is it you want to know?

Bring your questions, your answers, and your willingness to engage in a group discussion with the uxWaterloo crew.

Details

Thursday May 17, 2012
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub
151 Charles Street West, Suite 100, Kitchener

Sign up now, as space is limited!

Job: Visual Designer at Christie Digital

Location: Christie Digital, Kitchener

As Visual Designer, your primary role will be to create a suite of multi-platform interfaces for the control of our professional digital projectors.  Working together with software engineering and industrial design, you will form an integral part of Christie’s drive to bring outstanding user experience to all of our customers.  The right candidate will have exceptional visual design skills with a strong grounding in UX design process.  Typical activities may include user research, ideation and sketching, creating information hierarchies, building UI prototypes, running user trials, and generating rich, visual content.

You have a passion for creating outstanding user experience, backed up with exceptional visual design skills and the drive to make it happen.

Requirements

1. A strong portfolio of UI, and UX design work.  It should show a breadth of experience and illustrate the entire design process from ideation through to the final interface design.
2. Strong experience in UX / interaction design.
3. Exceptional graphic/visual design capabilities including typography, sketching, composition, layout, colour, presentation of information. You will be responsible for creating the final look and feel of our user interfaces.
4. Excellent communication skills.  Ability to communicate your ideas at all stages of the design process to a wide variety of audiences.
5. The right person is a good team player but also a self-starter who will be the driving force behind their project.
6. Expert user of Illustrator and Photoshop
7. Degree in design or relevant field with 5-7 years experience in related visual design industry

Benefits

Christie offers competitive salary, health & dental benefits, pension plan, and an on-site fitness centre.
There’s also stability, growth prospects, and education opportunities that come with being part of the Christie team. Christie has been recognized as one of ”Waterloo Area’s Top 15 Employers”, “Best Employers for New Canadians”, and one of “Canada’s Greenest Employers”. Working in a first-rate facility, manufacturing pioneering technologies for world-class organizations is nothing short of gratifying.

Apple now.

April 2012 event: UX at the movies

It’s been three years to the month since our last movie night, and that just feels far too long!

For our April gathering we’re turning down the lights, popping the corn, and firing up the projector. Join us for an informal screening of a variety of movies about our relationship with the tools and technologies that surround us — either as designers, or as end users. We’ll view clips from commercial films as well as a good variety of online videos from sources such as YouTube and Vimeo.

Suggest a movie

Of course, making an event like this successful requires participation and input from all of the attendees! Have you seen something that inspired you professionally? That got you thinking about your approach to user experience? That made you smile? Bring your suggestions and we’ll get them on the movie playlist. And, as always, be prepared for plenty of discussion, both serious and playful.

Details

Thursday April 19, 2012
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub
151 Charles Street West, Suite 100, Kitchener

Sign up now, as space is limited!

(March 2012) REAP project demos and design feedback

Wednesday March 7, 2012
5:30 to 7:00 pm
FELT Lab at Quarry Integrated Communications
1440 King Street North, St. Jacobs, Ontario
[Map]
Sign up now, as space is limited!

We like to mix up the kinds of events we do at uxWaterloo. It keeps things interesting, provides exposure to a wider range of ideas, and enables us to share our expertise with the community.

Some of you will recall our visit to the Felt lab back in November. That event was a chance to try out some of the interesting interactive display technologies at Felt. Well, we’re going back, but this time we’re on a mission to help students in the Research Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP) at the University of Waterloo by providing them with feedback on the projects that they are working on.

Come out and share your insights and design expertise with the next generation of UX practitioners and researchers, while learning more about exciting new technologies. The discussions are sure to be enlightening all around.

(November 2011) An Evening of Serious Play at the New FELT Lab

Our November event is an exciting opportunity to get some hands-on play time with a variety of interactive technologies in the recently launched FELT lab, located in St. Jacobs. uxWaterloo is one of the very first groups to make use of this terrific new facility!

A digital sandbox for serious play

Founded by the University of Waterloo’s Research Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP), the FELT lab is designed to spark “research entrepreneurship” between UW students, faculty and industry experts. It focuses particularly on interactivity and responsiveness in digital display environments, and has numerous corporate partners who’ve brought some terrific toys to the table.

The lab is located in the offices of Quarry Integrated Communications, but has a separate entrance off King Street in St. Jacobs. Inside the lab, you’ll find a range of emerging technologies such as Christie Canada’s MicroTiles, GestureTek’s Cube and Kiosk, Float4’s interactive FX, and Kommerz’s Mixed Reality Interface (MRI).

And we’re going to have some serious fun!

uxWaterloo’s event will feature some hands-on creative, integrative thinking, and building. Guided by students from the REAP program, we’ll work in groups to brainstorm (and bodystorm!) unique combinations and innovative applications of the lab’s technologies. We’ll pitch our best ideas to each other while learning about all the lab’s capabilities and technologies in the process. And, we’ll be documenting the process and ideas on video, ensuring that our creative energy is captured for posterity.

Play! Create! Share! Learn! It’s going to be an awesome event!

Thursday November 24, 2011
5:30 to 7:00 pm
FELT Lab at Quarry Integrated Communications
1440 King Street North, St. Jacobs, Ontario
[Map]
Sign up now, as space is limited!

October 2011: Design workshop with REEP

Thursday October 20, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo

Sign up now, as space is limited!

The October edition of uxWaterloo features a hands-on design workshop for the Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP). We’ll work in groups to generate ideas for improving the user experience of REEP’s Green Home Planner, a web-based tool used by home owners to plan upgrades based on REEP’s audit of their home’s environmental performance. Bring your creativity and your curiosity!

About REEP

REEP is an environmental, charitable organization that has provided home energy evaluations in Waterloo Region since 1999. Over the past twelve years, REEP’s Certified Energy Advisors have shown 13,235 homeowners how to save 18,142 tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions and $4,531,000 annually on their energy bills. Participants have reduced their heat loss by an average of 25% through home retrofits based on REEP’s recommendations.

Download REEP’s personas and a product brief

To provide some context for this month’s design workshop, REEP has drafted 2 documents that describe their target audience and the product we’ll be working on. Download the PDF files below:

	Download the REEP personas
	Download the REEP product brief

(September 2011) Tom Robinson on designing for novices, experts, and others

We’ve all seen the frustrations of novice users struggling with a piece of software not designed for them. Novices need features to help guide them through complex software. On the other hand, features designed to help novices may slowdown and frustrate expert users. Before we can design for novices and experts, we need to know how both groups interact with software. Knowing what novices and experts need from software, and which group we should design for, will help us decide what features to include and exclude.

During this session, we will look at who novices are, who experts are, and who’s in between. We will then have an extensive group discussion about which level of expertise people design for and how they approach design for that group.

Tom Robinson is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo. He is researching how people learn to use computer software, looking at the stages of knowledge that people pass through as they learn. Previously, he worked at Maplesoft and TD bank as a GUI developer. He has a bachelors and masters degree in Computer Science, also from the University of Waterloo.

Thursday September 15, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo

RSVP

Job: Senior User Experience Designer

Open Text™ (NASDAQ: OTEX; TSX: OTC) is the world’s largest independent provider of Enterprise Content Management software. The company’s solutions manage information for all types of business, compliance and industry requirements in the world’s largest companies, government agencies and professional service firms. Open Text supports approximately 46,000 customers and millions of users in 114 countries and 12 languages. For more information about Open Text, visit www.opentext.com.

User Experience (UX) Designers research, identify, and solve complex software design problems in an innovative, highly collaborative environment. UX Designers work directly with program managers, product managers, architects, and software developers to translate high level product requirements into designs that deliver compelling experiences that solve the business problem. They are responsible for designing the user experience architecture, interaction flow, and UI design of complex enterprise software applications.

Must be self-motivated with ability to work both independently and in conjunction with other UX team members and product groups. Enthusiasm and flexibility to work on a variety of projects are necessary, as well as the ability to rapidly acquire new domain knowledge. Must have the ability to balance business needs and usability / design ideals within a fast-paced, agile software development environment.

Responsibilities

• Support Program and Product Management by performing user research, developing ongoing relationships with customers to capture their stories and build a shared understanding of their problems and needs
• Work with Product Management in helping to create the product backlog and define the user experience vision for the product.
• Conceptualize, design and deliver intuitive and compelling designs for a complex product suite that clearly support business objectives
• Advocate user needs throughout the development lifecycle to inspire the engineering team to develop the right product
• Validate designs with customers and other stakeholders in order to drive iterative improvements throughout the development lifecycle
• Mentor peers, stakeholders, and teammates on customer-centered design principles and methodologies
• Maintain an awareness of current trends in interaction design and competitive software to identify opportunities to enhance the user experience
• Contribute to and help champion User Experience Design team initiatives, such as creation of design guidelines, process enhancements, toolkits, etc., fostering a customer-centered culture

Requirements

Education

Degree in Interaction Design, Psychology, Human Factors, Industrial Engineering or related HCI discipline, or demonstrated proficiency and experience in the field of software user experience / interaction design.

Skills

Minimum of 5 plus years of strong software interaction design experience reflected through portfolio / work samples demonstrating the following skills:

• Demonstrated results-oriented work ethic and consistent record of meeting deadlines
• Excellent listener, facilitator, communicator, and team player
• Self-reliant, used to taking initiative, and great at follow-up
• Creative, with solid understanding of interaction design best practices / principles
• Requirements gathering and analysis
• Creation of user personas
• Task and workflow analysis
• Light prototyping (paper and click-through interactive)
• Heuristic evaluation and expert walk-throughs
• Usability testing and analysis of results and/or working with user researchers/usability engineers to convert test recommendations to design decisions
• Good analytical and organizational skills including the ability to organize and prioritize tasks
• Ability to work both independently and in a highly collaborate environment as part of a global User Experience Design team
• Ability to shift among multiple projects as needed in rapid, agile software development environment
• Goal driven; plans and manages toward achieving goals, anticipates problems and issues and proactively drives their resolution
• Prior experience doing UX within an Agile environment would be an asset
• Experience with a variety of UI design and prototyping tools, e.g. Visio, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Axure, Balsamiq, Flash, etc.
• Web Development (HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript) and Flash experience a plus
• Knowledge of GUI accessibility standards (Section 508, WCAG, etc.) a plus
• Knowledge of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) products would be an asset

Apply Now

June 2011: Bob Rushby explains why pixels will soon be everywhere

Bob Rushby thinks that pixels are about to escape the bounds of their current display devices. As the recently-retired CTO of Christie Digital, he knows something about throwing pixels around, and in this month’s uxWaterloo session he’ll discuss the convergence of lighting and information display and the major effects it will have on architecture, graphic design, communications and how we live and work.

Electric lighting is used everywhere around us. It’s so ubiquitous that we are almost unaware of it. Yet the way we think about lighting is about to fundamentally change. No longer will lighting merely illuminate our desks, our walls and our buildings. Whether at home, in our workplace, or in public spaces, lighting is about to be transformed — it will communicate with us, interact with us, and help us see the world with new eyes. Pixels will be everywhere and this will have profound implications on our lives.

Bob retired from Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc. in February 2011 after an exciting career leading talented teams in the creation of ground-breaking high technology products. Christie is a global leader in projection and electronic display products and has the world’s largest installed base of digital cinema projection systems. Bob is currently involved with several exciting university entrepreneurship initiatives — in particular, the University of Waterloo REAP program and the Ryerson University Digital Media Zone. He is also writing a book on the theme of Digital Light… pixels everywhere.

Thursday June 16, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Google Waterloo
151 Charles Street West, Suite 200
Kitchener, ONT
[Map]

RSVP