Usability Analyst
Job Requisition Number: 34927
Bloomberg
New York - USA
The Role:
Bloomberg's User Experience group is expanding and looking for an experienced, self-motivated Usability Analyst practitioner with expertise in complex software products and business systems.
The Usability Analyst is a multi-disciplinary team player who can quickly learn our organization's needs and culture, and take responsibility for leading qualitative, usability-oriented customer research initiatives that assist our team in making critical design decisions regarding current and future Bloomberg products.
The ideal candidate is driven by the desire to be a customer advocate, and is passionate about gathering insights based on direct observation and behavior to create user experiences that are intuitive, satisfying, and easy to learn and interact with. Preference for a role focused on customer-centered qualitative usability research (vs. interaction design) is key for this candidate.
The User Experience professionals at Bloomberg form a core team that serve as a consulting resource for the highest-visibility business application and platform projects. The Usability Analyst will collaborate closely with other Usability Analysts, UX designers, product and technical managers, graphic designers, technical writers, programmers, subject matter experts, and both internal and external customers.
The person in this dedicated role will be actively hands-on with all strategic and tactical activities for planning, executing, and analyzing user research initiatives in a fast-paced environment; Can evangelize the value of user research and UX activities; And provide strategic direction, leadership, and guidance on incorporating user research methodologies into the product design and development lifecycle.
This is a very visible, customer facing role, and so it is important that the candidate has a professional, confident, and polished demeanor, is outgoing and articulate, and can easily adapt to new situations, people, and environments.
This is a unique opportunity to influence one of the most ubiquitous and influential software products in the marketplace. Although this is not a management role, this position will directly report into Bloomberg's CTO Office.
The candidate should be able to:
-Quickly synthesize business objectives and customer needs
-Develop a UX research approach, schedule, and detailed test plan for a given product scope
-Plan, recruit, script, facilitate, collect, analyze, and document usability data
-Identify and articulate potential usability issues both verbally and through documentation
-Transform the data into prioritized, actionable recommendations
-Clearly communicate usability analysis, recommendations, and potential design solutions
-Create persuasive presentations geared towards product owners, developers, visual designers, other UX team members, and c-level executives
The Usability Analyst at Bloomberg may often work in tandem with another Analyst, ormay work solo depending on scope and nature of the project. Studies will typically be conducted at our in-house Bloomberg Usability Lab, or may occasionally be conducted onsite with customers. The candidate should ideally be equally comfortable in both the role of usability evaluation facilitator as well as observer/notetaker.
This is not an interaction design role, but experience with interaction design principles, tools, and techniques is important both for communication with the internal team, and articulation of issues to stakeholders. Understanding of /experience with information architecture, wireframes, taxonomies, content strategy, prototype development, programming languages, and visual design principles is important as a foundational element.
The candidate should have a track record of applying common User-Centered Design practices and tools to solve tough design problems. Previous experience with design or research projects involving complex workflows, visualization of large datasets, operating system-level tools, and both web and software environments is a plus.
Ideally, the candidate has worked on both long-term, multi-phased research and design initiatives, as well as short-term, quick turnaround projects. Cross-vertical experience including but not limited to financial services, news and media, productivity software / applications, or products with a sizable and diverse customer base is also helpful.
Methodologies should include expertise in / experience performing:
-Usability Testing (in lab environment)
-Rapid Iterative Testing (RITE)
-Qualitative and Quantitative data analysis
-Eyetracking
-Persona Development
-Heuristic Evaluations
-A/B and Multivariate Testing
-Analytics and KPIs
-Survey Evaluation
-Card Sorting
-Ethnography/Contextual Inquiry
-Remote Usability Testing
-Other UCD methods
Qualifications:
- Bachelor of Science/Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, or related field
- 5-10+ years of experience applying research to interactive design, prototyping, and product development for preferably high-volume B2B AND B2C desktop applications, rich Web-based applications, or platform-level tools
- Strong, analytical problem solving, decision-making, and leadership skills
- In-depth understanding of user-centered design principles and tools
- Familiarity performing studies in a fixed usability lab environment
- Familiarity with data-logging tools and systems such as Ovo Studios, Morae, Camtasia, or similar
- Familiarity with wireframing and prototyping tools such as Visio/OmniGraffle Flash/Flex, Blend/WPF, Director, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, etc is a plus
- Familiarity with design tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
The Role:
Bloomberg's User Experience group is expanding and looking for an experienced, self-motivated Usability Analyst practitioner with expertise in complex software products and business systems.
The Usability Analyst is a multi-disciplinary team player who can quickly learn our organization's needs and culture, and take responsibility for leading qualitative, usability-oriented customer research initiatives that assist our team in making critical design decisions regarding current and future Bloomberg products.
The ideal candidate is driven by the desire to be a customer advocate, and is passionate about gathering insights based on direct observation and behavior to create user experiences that are intuitive, satisfying, and easy to learn and interact with. Preference for a role focused on customer-centered qualitative usability research (vs. interaction design) is key for this candidate.
The User Experience professionals at Bloomberg form a core team that serve as a consulting resource for the highest-visibility business application and platform projects. The Usability Analyst will collaborate closely with other Usability Analysts, UX designers, product and technical managers, graphic designers, technical writers, programmers, subject matter experts, and both internal and external customers.
The person in this dedicated role will be actively hands-on with all strategic and tactical activities for planning, executing, and analyzing user research initiatives in a fast-paced environment; Can evangelize the value of user research and UX activities; And provide strategic direction, leadership, and guidance on incorporating user research methodologies into the product design and development lifecycle.
This is a very visible, customer facing role, and so it is important that the candidate has a professional, confident, and polished demeanor, is outgoing and articulate, and can easily adapt to new situations, people, and environments.
This is a unique opportunity to influence one of the most ubiquitous and influential software products in the marketplace. Although this is not a management role, this position will directly report into Bloomberg's CTO Office.
The candidate should be able to:
-Quickly synthesize business objectives and customer needs
-Develop a UX research approach, schedule, and detailed test plan for a given product scope
-Plan, recruit, script, facilitate, collect, analyze, and document usability data
-Identify and articulate potential usability issues both verbally and through documentation
-Transform the data into prioritized, actionable recommendations
-Clearly communicate usability analysis, recommendations, and potential design solutions
-Create persuasive presentations geared towards product owners, developers, visual designers, other UX team members, and c-level executives
The Usability Analyst at Bloomberg may often work in tandem with another Analyst, ormay work solo depending on scope and nature of the project. Studies will typically be conducted at our in-house Bloomberg Usability Lab, or may occasionally be conducted onsite with customers. The candidate should ideally be equally comfortable in both the role of usability evaluation facilitator as well as observer/notetaker.
This is not an interaction design role, but experience with interaction design principles, tools, and techniques is important both for communication with the internal team, and articulation of issues to stakeholders. Understanding of /experience with information architecture, wireframes, taxonomies, content strategy, prototype development, programming languages, and visual design principles is important as a foundational element.
The candidate should have a track record of applying common User-Centered Design practices and tools to solve tough design problems. Previous experience with design or research projects involving complex workflows, visualization of large datasets, operating system-level tools, and both web and software environments is a plus.
Ideally, the candidate has worked on both long-term, multi-phased research and design initiatives, as well as short-term, quick turnaround projects. Cross-vertical experience including but not limited to financial services, news and media, productivity software / applications, or products with a sizable and diverse customer base is also helpful.
Methodologies should include expertise in / experience performing:
-Usability Testing (in lab environment)
-Rapid Iterative Testing (RITE)
-Qualitative and Quantitative data analysis
-Eyetracking
-Persona Development
-Heuristic Evaluations
-A/B and Multivariate Testing
-Analytics and KPIs
-Survey Evaluation
-Card Sorting
-Ethnography/Contextual Inquiry
-Remote Usability Testing
-Other UCD methods
Qualifications:
- Bachelor of Science/Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, or related field
- 5-10+ years of experience applying research to interactive design, prototyping, and product development for preferably high-volume B2B AND B2C desktop applications, rich Web-based applications, or platform-level tools
- Strong, analytical problem solving, decision-making, and leadership skills
- In-depth understanding of user-centered design principles and tools
- Familiarity performing studies in a fixed usability lab environment
- Familiarity with data-logging tools and systems such as Ovo Studios, Morae, Camtasia, or similar
- Familiarity with wireframing and prototyping tools such as Visio/OmniGraffle Flash/Flex, Blend/WPF, Director, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, etc is a plus
- Familiarity with design tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
To Apply:
http://jobs.bloomberg.com/job/New-York-Usability-Analyst-Job-NY/2246694/?utm_source=Indeed&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=Indeed
