Individual Consultant - UI/UX Researcher at Girl Effect

Girl Effect, We’re a creative non-profit empowering girls to change their lives. Started by the Nike Foundation, we are experts in media, mobile, brand and international development: a unique mix of skills that we use to solve global problems in a different way.

We work across the world in the places where girls are marginalised and vulnerable. We create for young people in ways they love and interact with. And it's all delivered through the media and mobile tech they use every day – from apps that build skills, to TV dramas that explore vital issues, to magazines written by girls.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Individual Consultant - UI/UX Researcher 

Location: Nigeria
Employment Type: Contract
Duration: Sept 2024 to February 2025.

What you’ll do

• The objective is to support the design for new experiences by creating innovative solutions for a wide variety of product design challenges ensuring they align with the organization's behavior change goals and target audience needs.
• The designer will be expected to apply Human Centered Design thinking and approach not just within products, but also across the wider product ecosystem at Girl Effect and the complicated user journeys from product to product as well. 
• This consultant will conduct design sprints, consolidate outputs of design sessions, and support the running of feature prioritization sessions.
• They will also conduct prototyping activities collaboratively with a cohort of young people and other stakeholders across products such as chatbots, mobile applications, and brand websites, among others related to upcoming and existing products.
• In this role, you should be an analytical and creative designer who can grasp user needs and solve problems. A strong portfolio of successful UX and other technical projects is essential. The engagement will start from Sept 2024 to February 2025.

UX Analysis: 

• Devise and conduct a consultation plan with key stakeholders and target audiences including questionnaires, focus groups or interviews.
• Conduct a thorough assessment of the current UX design, identifying usability challenges, and opportunities for improvement. 
• Create user personas and scenarios to guide the design improvements based on user needs and goals. 
• Conduct concept and  usability testing in the field with users
• Provide a detailed report summarizing the findings, including prioritized recommendations for UX enhancements to stakeholders and developers. 
• Work with data to optimize and enhance products.
• Own and conduct design reviews with data, engineering and content teams to ensure a successful deployment with an appropriate go-ahead.

UI Enhancement: 

• Utilize the insights from the UX analysis to redesign and enhance the visual appearance of the web platform's user interface. 
• Define interaction models, UI components, and navigation structures to optimize user engagement and facilitate information discovery.
• Incorporate interactive elements to enhance usability and convey complex concepts effectively.
• Develop wireframes, interactive prototypes, and mockups to illustrate proposed UI changes. 
• Implement modern design principles, including responsiveness, consistency, and visual hierarchy, while aligning with our brand identity. 
• Ensure the new UI design elements fit seamlessly into the existing platform's technical framework, ensuring a consistent and cohesive user experience across all website components.
• Collaborate with Designers and Developers to create intuitive, user-friendly software to ensure that the updated UI maintains or improves the platform's overall performance and loading speed.
• Support UI content creation as and when required.

Expected Commitment:

• The assignment will take approximately six months to complete.
• Depending on the programme’s needs, the consultant may be required to work 15- 20 hours each week on this assignment.
• The consultant's assignment period is from September  2024 to February 2025.

Experience and skills

• You must be based in Nigeria and can travel within the country. 
• Strong language skills in speaking, writing, presenting, and reading in  English Language. Any other Nigerian languages or dialects are a bonus.
• 4+ years of professional experience in a design consultancy or equivalent position collaborating with multidisciplinary teams
• Fluency in the human-centered design process from qualitative research and synthesis to ideation, prototyping, and implementation.
• Service Design, UX, UI - Proficiency in wireframing and design tools such as Invision, Figma, Miro etc.
• You are solution-focused and medium-agnostic, willing to step out of your core skill set or discipline to find the correct solution to a design challenge.
• You have cultural sensitivity, creativity, and resourcefulness—comfortable finding your way through.
• You deliver precise and effective written and verbal communication to convey ideas, instructions, and feedback to team members, girls and young women.

Highly Desirable:

• Experience in health-related content/Behavior change content production in the field of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Economic Empowerment would be a massive bonus.
• Experience in Conversational Interfaces such as Chatbots
• Basic Understanding/development of Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning
• Cross-cultural design experience and/or working in design for ICT4D
• Experience working in emerging markets.
• Experience collaborating with in-house and third-party developers in agile sprints, stewarding the transfer of design to development.
• Familiarity with tools such as Google Suite, Asana and Slack is a bonus.

Attitudes we are looking for: 

• Comfortable with complex organizational structures and multiple stakeholders 
• Comfortable with shared decision-making 
• A ‘do-er thinker’ 
• Enthusiastic about talking to and interacting with people across cultures and geographies - this role will require extensive conversations, presentations, documentation and fire-fighting 
• Highly empathetic and context-sensitive - able to balance conflicting needs and priorities decisively 
• Mission-driven and cares about making a difference in the lives of young people and vulnerable sections of society.

Application Closing Date
18th September, 2024.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should send their proposals, as described below to: [email protected] using "Nigeria  UI/UX Researcher" as the subject of the mail.

Proposal Submission
Interested consultants are asked to submit the following to support their candidature (Max 10 pages):

• Your understanding of the brief and why you feel you are well-placed to advise us on this
• Credentials/Profile/CV - Please showcase any previous work that you consider relevant to what we are trying to achieve and how we approach our work, and the audience we cater to. Describe the qualifications, experience, and capabilities of the firm or consultant in providing the requested services.
• Reference- Provide at least three references for similar contracts with a description of the service provided, the value of the contract, and the contract periods of performance.
• Breakdown of Costs with applicable taxes and other charges clearly identified in Naira. Consultants should provide their daily or hourly billing rate or their proposed fixed fee for the requested deliverables.. All applicable taxes should be quoted separately.
• In their proposal, the bidder must demonstrate an understanding of the requirements described in the TOR and demonstrate how the bidder will meet the requirements of the evaluation criteria.
• GE is not liable for any cost incurred during the award/contract preparation, submission, or negotiation of the award/contract. All submitted documentation and/or materials shall become and remain the property of GE.
• VALIDITY of the proposal shall be for 90 days from the date of bid closure.