Interaction Designer

Come create impact with us:

At IDEO, Interaction Designers play an integral role in our design process, and in evolving our business through the work. We count on our interaction designers to create compelling interactions and experiences through design, prototyping, and storytelling. They guide project teams to consider interactions people have with complex systems, software, services, and each other, create prototypes of varying levels of fidelity to communicate a concept, and provide expertise on the potential of hardware/software intersection, digital product design, service design, systems design, and experience design. As an Interaction Designer at IDEO, you’ll work on project teams to help clients practice human-centered design to solve complex problems, & create breakthrough experiences, services, and products. 

Along your journey, you may have called yourself any of the following, but not limited to: Digital Product Designer, UX/UI Designer, Systems Designer, Interaction Designer, Product Designer, Visual Designer; or have studied topics related to Experience Design, Interaction Design, Human Computer Interactions, or Human Factors. 

Why is this role important for IDEO’s work?

At IDEO we create impact through design. Our goal is to create work that is desirable, feasible, and viable. Interaction Designers live at the intersection of all three lenses. This role will create opportunities to stay with your work and support its execution in the real world. 

We're looking for people who enjoy working across a variety of digital platforms, and can zoom in and out, designing at both the detail and the system levels. We are looking for one or more of the following proficiencies:

• Digital Design: Proficiency in digital design tools such as Figma, Principle, and Adobe Creative Suite to work across a variety of digital platforms, such as and not limited to, web, app, TV, voice, motion
• Service Design: Designing for multiple touchpoints (physical, digital, environmental) within a system to yield one coherent user experience
• Integrative Thinking: Take inspiration and learning from other disciplines to improve solutions, and comfortably stretch into other disciplines
• Build to Think: Instinct to make things tangible early in the process in order to understand what’s directionally compelling. Understands and exercises the value of building early and rough to de-risk big questions
• Systems Design: Design at both the detail level and the broad systems level, taking a complex set of ideas or requirements, making sense of their relationships, and organizing coherent, user-centered connections between them

As an Interaction Designer, you bring humility and empathy to both your work output and your collaborators. You thrive on complex challenges, have a passion for design, keep a pulse on emerging trends and technology, and hold a developed point of view about your work. 

We know the skills, passions and flavors of Interaction Design vary, which is why we’re looking for individuals who know how to design across a wide variety of mediums; mobile apps, websites, digital/physical controls, room-scale displays, AR/VR, voice user interfaces, and/or a range of prototyping tools, including new-to-market, interactive, and motion-based tools. Do you have experience with a variety of design tools such as Sketch, Figma, InVision, Framer, Principle, Adobe CC suite, HTML/CSS/JS, Processing/P5, or Arduino? Great! 

You bring experience building and using prototypes to test assumptions and collect feedback on a design direction. You are highly collaborative, and maintain a mindset of curiosity and openness when working across teams and functions. You practice curiosity by asking questions, learning through secondary research, talking to experts or others not like yourself, requesting feedback from others, and seeking out other perspectives. 

Once here you will:

Craft Expertise

• Practice interaction design in a human-centered way, lead with curiosity and empathy, and work on projects that identify and solve problems across a variety of industries
• Translate human-centered research insights into actionable experiences for people, crafting the structure and behavior of delightful products and services

Collaborate

• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams of designers from different backgrounds such as design researchers, data scientists, business designers, organizational designers, software designers, industrial designers, and communication designers
• Collaborate across digital platforms to create beautiful interactions and experiences, bringing them to life through design, prototyping, storytelling

Explore

• Build an understanding of IDEO’s client organizations, and partner with clients to drive change and innovation within their teams and organizations
• Spot opportunities for breakthrough, seek analogous sources of inspiration, and bring inspiration back to our design teams and client partners

Grow & Expand

• Grow your interaction design skills by continuous exposure to other projects and people to learn from, in an environment where you can contribute your unique skillset and perspective to a greater community 
• Shape the interaction design discipline across IDEO globally by sharing with, and learning from, other interaction designers

Relevant experiences and/or mindsets:

• Build and use prototypes to test and get feedback on design directions. This might look like: creating paper prototypes, creating click-through prototypes, etc
• Create and apply story-based design to convey an idea to the right audience and craft compelling stories
• Apply principles of visual design (type, color, grid, hierarchy) across a variety of interfaces to create a coherent, intuitive, and emotionally engaging experience
• Curious and has a desire to learn and explore what's possible. This might look like: asking questions, learning through secondary research, talking to experts or others not like yourself, gaining deeper understanding of a topic you are working on, asking for input from others, seeking out other perspectives
• Take a systems thinking lens to tackle complex, interconnected challenges
• Eager to contribute to culture of exploration, learning, and diversity of thought

What does IDEO offer you?

IDEO is a place where you can solve diverse, complex challenges for our clients and their organizations, alongside thoughtful, intelligent individuals who lead with curiosity, empathy, and humility. We intentionally craft moments that allow our community to pause, create, and connect. We encourage our community to bring their whole selves to work, respect the need for work-life balance, and allow for autonomy in the design process and your career.

How to Apply

For your application to be considered, please submit a cover letter (yes, we read them!), resume, and the link to your portfolio website. In your cover letter, please convey why this opportunity is of interest, and aligned to this season of your career. We look forward to reading yours!