Experienced Design Specialist

Overview

JD- Experience Design Specialist v2.0

JOB DESCRIPTION

JOB TITLE Experience Design Specialist

JOB FAMILY Digital Office - Group Digital & Technology

POSITION

BUSINESS UNIT Corporate REPORTS TO (TITLE) Senior Manager- Digital and Agile

DEPARTMENT Group D&T NUMBER OF DIRECT REPORTS NA

PURPOSE

The role purpose is a brief description of the position's main functionality. At Al Ghurair, we are driving large-scale digital transformation across 120+ legal entities spanning diverse sectors, including Masonry, Foods, Properties, Projects, Education, Taxi, Automotive, Facilities Management, Print, and Power.

The Experience Design Specialist plays a key role in embedding human-centered design into how digital solutions are conceived, developed, and delivered across the group. This role is responsible for reviewing and optimizing end-to-end user journeys, identifying pain points, and recommending actionable improvements to enhance usability and overall experience. The specialist will champion design thinking as a core way of working, fostering close collaboration with business stakeholders to co-create intuitive, high-impact solutions. By aligning user needs with business and strategic priorities, the role ensures that initiatives deliver measurable value, improve customer satisfaction, and elevate the effectiveness of digital products and services.

Key Accountabilities

Key accountabilities are areas of responsibility that are essential of the position.

1. Strategic - Depending on the Position Level - Responsibilities that articulate the strategic role a position plays in an organization (e.g., strategy development, budget formulation, revenue and profit & loss responsibility).
   • Refine and evolve the organization's design system(s) to drive consistency, scalability, and efficiency across digital applications. The role ensures that design systems are not just maintained, but continuously improved as strategic assets. This includes establishing clear standards, reusable components, and governance models that enable teams to deliver cohesive, high-quality user experiences at scale. By aligning the design system with brand guidelines, technology frameworks, and user needs, the role accelerates development cycles, reduces duplication, and enhances cross-team collaboration. The specialist also promotes adoption across product teams, ensuring the design system becomes an integral part of the digital ecosystem and supports long-term innovation and growth.
2. Operational - Responsibilities that entail the delivery of operational day-to-day activities and tasks.
   • Conduct heuristic evaluations of existing digital applications to identify usability gaps and improvement opportunities. The role systematically assesses applications against established usability principles and best practices to uncover friction points, inconsistencies, and accessibility issues. This includes reviewing user flows, interface patterns, and interaction behaviors to diagnose areas that hinder efficiency or satisfaction. The specialist documents findings in a structured and actionable manner in Jira in the form of user stories, prioritizing issues based on impact and effort, and collaborates with product and development teams to define clear recommendations for improvement.
   • Improve, optimize, and redesign digital applications to enhance usability, performance, and overall user experience. The role translates insights from evaluations, user feedback, and business requirements into practical design solutions. This includes creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs that simplify user journeys, improve task completion rates, and align with the organization's design system. The role works closely with cross-functional teams to iterate on solutions, validate designs through testing, and ensure seamless implementation. Continuous optimization is a key focus, with ongoing refinements based on user behavior, analytics, and evolving business needs.
3. Product / Process Improvement - Responsibilities that pertain to a proactive role in identifying and improving existing business processes or products.
   • Foster a culture of experimentation and innovation by leveraging emerging technologies and modern design methodologies to improve business outcomes.

Job Description and Capabilities

The role actively promotes a test-and-learn mindset across digital initiatives, encouraging teams to explore new ideas, challenge assumptions, and validate concepts through rapid experimentation. This includes introducing and applying emerging tools, technologies (such as AI-driven design, automation, and advanced prototyping), and methodologies (e.g., design sprints, lean UX, and agile practices) to accelerate innovation cycles.

Communication

The contact groups represent the functions or entities, both internal and external to Al Ghurair, which the position regularly interacts with

INTERNAL EXTERNAL

1. Business and IT Leaders
2. Process owners, subject matter experts and leads
3. Group IT Team
4. Product and Solution Providers
5. Implementation Partners

Qualification and Experience

This section outlines the education, experience, knowledge and skills required for the position to be able to deliver upon the job's duties and responsibilities.

Education and Technical Certifications

• Bachelors or master's degree in Interaction Design/UX Design/Graphic Design or Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Nielsen Norman Group UX Certification
• Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) courses
• Google UX Design Certificate

Knowledge and Skills

• Human-centered design principles and design thinking methodologies
• Usability and accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG)
• Design systems, component libraries, and governance models
• User research methods (qualitative and quantitative)
• Digital product lifecycle and agile delivery frameworks
• Information architecture and interaction design patterns
• Basic front-end concepts (HTML, CSS, responsive design)
• Analytics and user behavior interpretation (funnels, heatmaps, etc.)
• Emerging technologies (AI in design, automation, prototyping tools)
• Conducting heuristic evaluations and usability audits
• Translating insights into wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs
• Simplifying complex user journeys and workflows
• Facilitating workshops (design sprints, co-creation sessions)
• Stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration
• Storytelling and presenting design decisions with clarity
• Prioritization and problem-solving based on user and business impact
• Iterative testing and continuous optimization
• Driving adoption of design systems and best practices

Experience

• Minimum of 6-8 years' of hands on experience delivering human centered designs
• Candidate must demonstrate strong proficiency in Figma, Adobe XD, and similar design tools

Key Performance Measures

What are the role typical measures of performance

• Improvement in Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and/or Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Reduction in user complaints and identified pain points
• Improved usability metrics (task success rate, error rate)
• Reduction in task completion time for key user journeys
• Increase in conversion / completion rates
• Decrease in drop-off rates across critical flows
• Adoption rate of the design system across products (%)
• Reduction in UI inconsistencies and design deviations
• Increase in reuse of design components vs. net-new designs
• Number of usability tests, interviews, or research studies conducted
• % of design decisions backed by data or user research
• Speed of translating insights into implemented improvement

Version

VERSION 2.0

LAST REVISED ON: 20th April 2025

WRITTEN BY: Ayesha Shamim

APPROVED BY: (Business Unit People & Culture Head)