User Interface (UI) / Visual Information Designer – Research, Illustration, and Innovation

Charles River Analytics creates solutions and technology to tackle the world's most challenging problems. Our team of technological entrepreneurs works together to push at the forefront of enhanced AI, robotics, smart sensing, and human-centered computing. The resulting research and development help to continuously advance government programs and discover new possibilities in the commercial marketplace. We are a 100% employee-owned company, encouraging participation, innovation, and responsibility from our entire staff. At Charles River, we take great pride in our success in attracting and retaining the most talented and creative problem-solvers in our field. Are you interested in being an Employee Owner at an innovative research and development company?? If this sounds like you, then we'd love to hear from you!

We are looking for a passionate User Interface (UI) Designer with outstanding skills in graphic design and illustration, along with experience in research-driven design. The ideal candidate should be adept at illustrating user interface concepts, communicating interface decisions, and relating them to foundational principles in human factors, human-computer interaction, and usability.

In this role, you will work with small teams of research scientists and software engineers to design innovative interfaces as part of a user-centered design process. You will employ principled and creative approaches to move from early research wireframes to high-fidelity design concepts and support development into functional software systems. You will work with our scientists and software engineers to determine design requirements, iterate novel interaction approaches and assist in implementing these designs in live software systems. You will support the evaluation and application of research ideas throughout the systems engineering process. You will communicate the overall process and results of your work with the team to key stakeholders, clients, and end users through concept illustrations, PowerPoint briefings, dynamic prototypes, and/or short interaction videos.

Responsibilities include understanding requirements and conceptualizing new user interfaces and interactive data visualizations while leveraging clean, clear, and balanced user interface elements; illustrating and articulating design ideas using conceptual wireframes, storyboards, high-fidelity mockups, and final graphics; leveraging and contributing to a set of design assets and visual patterns; rapidly iterating through multiple concepts and prototypes; delivering prototypes and communicating functions and requirements to describe interactions; capturing and developing process artifacts; communicating design concepts visually, clearly, and concisely to different audiences (e.g., product teams, customers, and end users); extending, maintaining, and supporting others in using design systems and libraries to empower the overall team. In addition to researching and designing quality user interfaces, the candidate must be able to clearly present design rationale through written, visual, and verbal means to project teams, stakeholders, users, and clients.

How you will make a difference:

• Research, design, and support the development of novel user interface designs, data visualizations, and interaction approaches
• Be a UI and Design advocate, establishing and applying best practices to design key interactions and workflows across a broad range of desktop, mobile, and augmented and virtual reality applications
• Lead interactions with project stakeholders and end users to analyze and understand domain challenges and needs within a problem domain
• Communicate complex, interactive design concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels of the organization
• Work in close collaboration with key project team members, including PM and technical leads and software developers, to see your design through deployment
• Communicate complex, interactive design concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels of the organization
• Create and manage design assets for engineering
• Develop content and support visual artifacts to contribute to proposals, reports, and papers, and present work at briefings and conferences as appropriate
• Collaborate with the team to define and respond to requirements, and develop visual concepts to support solving complex problems
• Work with software engineers to develop envisioned technology solutions

What you'll need

• U.S. Citizenship
• Degree in Graphic Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Interaction Design, Cognitive Systems Engineering, or a related field (e.g., Computer Science with HCI or Interaction Design focus) or a strong track record conducting user research and developing effective user interfaces
• Ability to take early sketches and wireframes and turn them into high-fidelity interface mockups with modern design sensibilities as well as developing supporting graphical elements, such as storyboards, concept-of-operation graphics, and process artifacts
• Excellent graphic design, visual communication, and functional reasoning skills, with superior attention to detail
• Ability to define and translate user needs and system features into actionable design requirements and to work with software engineering teams to define the direction of technical solutions
• Expert knowledge of design and prototyping tools, including Adobe Creative Suite (e.g., Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop), as well as experience with Figma
• Strong portfolio showcasing your interface design process and outcomes, demonstrating high quality of work and strong visual aesthetic design sense
• Experience interacting directly with customers, stakeholders, or users to define design requirements and deliver design products
• Ability to flexibly work on a diverse set of projects with different timelines and needs
• Proven experience designing novel user interfaces, interaction concept illustrations, and data visualizations from the ground up, as well as ability to leverage existing resources, design systems, and reusable assets
• A desire to seek and learn from feedback to grow technical skills and employ new work going forward
• Independent ability to research and apply leading design trends, data science, visualization, and interaction techniques
• Demonstrated ability to generate clear and grammatically correct written materials
• Ability to accommodate a hybrid schedule (60% onsite 40% remote)

Preferred Experience:

• Experience performing literature reviews and using the results to recommend system improvements or enhancements
• Experience with Agile or Scrum development processes
• Proven ability to generate inputs into proposals, publications, or similar written materials
• 2+ years of hands-on experience creating and evaluating user experiences
• Experience documenting your design process and products for technical and scientific presentations
• Experience in multimodal interfaces, autonomous systems, human-robot interaction, or human/AI teaming (including Generative AI), and designing for augmented-, mixed-, and virtual-reality (AR, MR, and VR) interfaces

Why Charles River?

Charles River Analytics is a 100% employee-owned company that thrives on collaboration and values each employee-owner. We offer competitive compensation plus bonuses, profit-sharing, and an attractive benefits package. Our benefits include 100% employer-paid medical and dental insurance as well as vision, life, and disability insurance; paid maternity/paternity leave; tuition reimbursement; monthly gym allowance; free parking; generous paid time off; and a casual environment. We are also accessible by public transportation. We offer a hybrid onsite/remote (60/40) schedule with tremendous flexibility. At Charles River, we truly value work-life balance