User Interface (UI) 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 one of Boston's Best Places to Work? 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 on 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’ll help us grow

• Research, design, and support the development of novel user interface designs, data visualizations, and interaction approaches
• Able to quickly learn by example, by trial and error, and by searching and reading
• Develop content and supporting visual artifacts to contribute to proposals, reports, and papers, and present work at briefings and conferences as appropriate
• Interact with customers, users, and subject matter experts to analyze and understand domain challenges and needs within a problem domain
• Collaborate with the team to define and respond to requirements, and develop visual concepts to support solving complex problems
• Flexible work across a diverse set of projects and timelines
• Independently seek and learn from feedback to grow technical skills and employ new work going forward
• Work with Principal Investigators and project technical leads to identify and apply cutting-edge HCI design methodologies and points of intersection across multiple similar domains
• 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 int