Usability Analyst (34927) New York, New York
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 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.
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.
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
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 B2Cdesktop 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 Company:
Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company's strength - delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately - is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 300,000 subscribers globally. Bloomberg's enterprise solutions build on the company's core strength, leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively. Through Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Government and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the company provides data, news and analytics to decision makers in industries beyond finance. And Bloomberg News, delivered through television, radio, mobile, the Internet and two magazines, Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Markets, covers the world with more than 2,300 news and multimedia professionals at 146 bureaus in 72 countries. Headquartered in New York, Bloomberg employs more than 13,000 people in 185 locations around the world.