Requisition ID: req18909
Job Title: Human Centered Design Supervisor
Sector: Education
Employment Category: Regular
Employment Type: Full-Time
Open to Expatriates: No
Location: Kasulu, Tanzania
Job Description
Background/IRC Summary:
The
International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst
humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives.
Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers
lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee
from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 28 U.S.
cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted
and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.
Project Background
PlayMatters
(2020-2025) is an education initiative funded through a $100 million
grant from the LEGO Foundation. The program reimagines childhood for
800,000+ refugee and host-community children across Ethiopia, Tanzania,
and Uganda – children whose education and social development has been
affected by displacement and trauma. Building on children’s amazing
resilience and a growing evidence base supporting Learning through Play
methodologies, PlayMatters cultivates holistic learning for children
ages 3-12+. PlayMatters is led by the International Rescue Committee and
includes Plan International, War Child Holland, Innovations for Poverty
Action, the Behavioral Insights Team in partnership with the LEGO
Foundation.
Position Summary
The IRC is seeking a
Human Centered Design Supervisor to join our content and piloting teams
in Tanzania. The Human Centered Design Supervisor will use completed
qualitative research on the context to understand opportunities and
barriers for play-based learning; in addition to collaboratively working
with education experts to design and test intervention prototypes in
refugee and host populations in Tanzania. The Human Centered Design
Supervisor will work with PlayMatters content teams to interpret results
from early intervention testing, behavioral research, and other
formative research to collaboratively identify solutions to integrate
play-based learning into schools, which our content teams can lead in
integrating into intervention drafts. For interventions that may need to
be tested for contextualization, the Human Centered Design Supervisor
will work with our teams to lead the testing process, including
developing testing plans (testing workplan, learning questions,
interview guides, etc.) and, collaboratively with our piloting teams,
testing content with users. Content will be designed to support
behavioral change for educators, caregivers, and community members to
embed learning through play into the lives of children aged 3-12+ in the
spaces in which they live and learn.
Major Responsibilities:
The
Human Centered Design Supervisor will be an integral part of our team
and will work collaboratively with PlayMatters content development
teams.
- Product Design: Human Centered Designer will
help adapt content with the team. The Human Centered Designer will work
with content development teams to test/contextualize the community draft
interventions (as needed) and identify areas for refinement in draft
interventions, based on test results from small-scale piloting,
prototyping, and contextual testing. This can include digital/analog
user flows, mockups, service design storyboards, informational design
for implementors, short videos or audio, and other assets necessary for
each program. - Workshop facilitation and design: The
designer will work closely with the PlayMatters content development and
content testing teams to co-lead co-design workshops with key
stakeholders (remote and/or in person). They will synthesize insights
from interviews and design workshops with the team to identify actions
for the next iteration of content. - Prototype Creation and Testing:
The designer is responsible for connecting the dots between user
research, evidence, and expert direction from the team, to generate
testable prototypes. Examples of prototypes include low-fidelity
printouts/illustrations, clickable mockups, sample messages, high
fidelity mock-ups of service experience, user journeys, and
illustrations to test for understanding. Prototype testing: The designer
will work with the team to test prototypes with key stakeholders
(remote and/or in person where possible). - Graphic Design:
The Human Centered Designer will adapt, design, and contextualize
content with the prototyping team to create final assets that ensure
uptake and understanding. This includes creating graphics,
illustrations, printed and digital materials, as necessary for each
program. - Final Documentation: The Human Centered Designer
will be responsible for designing assets (visuals, relevant materials)
to input into the final guide and implementation deck for the two
programs that explains how to use the final assets to roll out the
program. - Piloting: The designer will co-create
instruction guides and testing plans for using and implementing final
assets. They will work with the monitoring and evaluation team to draft
interview questions to be answered during the piloting phase. They will
work with the team to co-manage the testing process and adapt the final
assets and guides after the pilots based on feedback from the research
conducted by the M&E/project team.
Job Requirements:
Work Experience:
- Product design experience of 2 years
- Qualitative research/human-centered design research skills of 3-5 years
- Graphic design experience
- Portfolio demonstrating graphic design, design research, and product design projects.
- Preferred experience creating educational content, educational services, or educational programs.
- Preferred experience working with pre-literate adults, young children, refugee populations, and vulnerable populations.
Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:
- Design research/qualitative research
- Prototyping
- Illustrations
- Graphic design
Preferred skills and competencies:
- Video editing
- Audio editing
- Whatsapp/digital skills
Language Skills:
- Swahili and local language skills relevant to the refugee context in Tanzania is a major plus
- English (fluent)
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s
degree in Psychology, Education, Anthropology, Sociology, Cultural
Anthropology, or related degree desirable (Masters preferred). - Ability
to synthesize the learnings from previous testing to identify concrete
intervention elements needed, document and share the progress,
learnings, challenges, barriers, and other information with the country
team, regional team, and the design Lead - Ability to work
collaboratively with content teams to refine and build out the following
interventions based on the testing results that have already been
obtained. - Ability to lead and manage teams to test content to ensure content is relevant for all users in all PlayMatters contexts.
- Work
with the PlayMatters graphic designer and content teams to ensure
content is designed so that it is responsive to user needs. - Experience in qualitative data collection
- Experience leading design research and prototyping with end users.
- Experience creating user experiences and interactions and user flows.
- Able to create client-ready visual design from scratch.
- Can
create client-ready visual design within an existing system or brand,
can extend pre-existing visual system and produce print-ready work. - Can
make effective choices of user experience elements, such as buttons,
layouts, visual styling, and wayfinding for both in-space or digital
experiences. - Exceptional visual design skills to showcase ideas and concepts to non-designers.
- Excellent
verbal, written and visual communication skills as well as, an overall
ability to be clear and concise in all communications. - Strong organizational and time-management skills; proven ability to prioritize and deliver on time.
- Strong problem-solving skills
- Ability to work both independently and in a dynamic, cross-functional global team structure.
- Proficiency in Adobe Suite especially adobe illustrator, indesign, photoshop and premiere.
- Proficiency using prototyping tools like figma, proto.io, marvel and other digital prototyping applications
Working Environment:
Mix
of remote and in person work. Applicants must have a home or alternate
workspace they can effectively complete their work from during regularly
scheduled work hours.
The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the
values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional
Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In
accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on
Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding,
Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.
Warning:
Please
be warned of various scams, being circulated via e-mails, from the
Internet web sites, and via regular mail or fax, falsely being issued by
or associated with the IRC . Beware that The IRC does not charge a fee
at any stage of its recruitment process (application, interview meeting,
processing, training or any other fee). IRC does not request any
information related to bank accounts. If asked of any payment please
contact [email protected].
