Senior UX Designer/Researcher

DataStaff, Inc. is currently seeking a Senior UX Designer/Researcher for a long-term contract opportunity with one of our direct clients in Des Moines, IA \
* This is a remote position. However, local candidates are preferred.

Job Description
Our client is seeking a highly skilled, communication-focused Senior UX Designer / Researcher to join our digital modernization team. We are looking for a dedicated user experience and user research specialist. Front-end development skills are entirely optional, though any coding ability serves as a welcome asset. In this position, you will closely collaborate with our lead UX/Accessibility Architect to scale high-quality digital standards across enterprise initiatives. You will possess specialized UX research capabilities that do not exist on the current team, taking ownership of user testing and UI optimization. This role requires an immediate start to support a high-priority modernization pipeline for the IStudent Reporting in Iowa (SRI) initiative—advancing a large-scale project phase with tight milestones—with additional cross-agency support.

Responsibilities:

- User Experience Research: Design, plan, and execute formal user experience research to evaluate complex workflows, ensuring applications are intuitive and efficient for educators and state employees.
- Usability Testing: Moderate hands-on user testing sessions and run usability labs to actively identify and resolve workflow friction.
- Heuristic Evaluation: Audit early layouts and interfaces against usability best practices and design standards.
- User Journey & Persona Mapping: Translate complex district data reporting and environmental workflows into clear, intuitive user journeys and behavioral personas.
- Information Architecture: Structure massive, data-heavy reporting categories logically using techniques like card sorting.
- Accessibility Alignment: Integrate digital accessibility from the ground up, aligning design systems and user research with WCAG standards to ensure digital services are universally accessible to all Iowans.
- Collaborative Design: Partner with our lead Architect to scale technical user experience and research practices across multi-agency initiatives, chatbot interfaces, and global state projects.
- Clear Communication: Collaborate effectively with cross-functional agency teams, product owners, and technical stakeholders to clearly articulate design findings and research data. Knowledge and

Experience:

- Pure UX research and design role (No coding expected).
- Graduates of ISU HCI (Human Computer Interaction) program are highly desired.
- UX research
- User-centered design
- User journey mapping
- Wireframes and prototypes
- Design recommendations
- Accessibility-first design
- Design documentation and annotations
- Advanced Figma
- UX research methodologies
- User flow creation
- Prototyping
- Accessibility (WCAG)
- Stakeholder collaboration
- Design documentation
- UX research experience
- Figma proficiency
- Accessibility knowledge
- Design thinking methodology
- Analytics-driven recommendations Preferred

Experience:

- Heat maps (Crazy Egg, Hotjar, etc.)
- Card sorting
- Usability testing
- Nielsen Norman Group training
- Google UX Certification
- Formal UX/HCI education
- User behavior analysis
- Data-driven design recommendations
- Senior UX Design Expertise: Extensive experience designing responsive web application interfaces, wireframes, and interactive prototypes. Required

Skills:

- 8 Years
- Demonstrated mastery in moderating user testing sessions, executing usability labs, performing heuristic evaluations, mapping user journeys, and managing information architecture.
- 8 Years
- WCAG 2.2 Level AA Mastery: Practical knowledge of implementing WCAG 2.2 Level AA requirements, focus management, keyboard navigation mechanics, and color contrast principles within visual layouts.
- Strong Communicator: Ability to clearly explain user research insights, interface design choices, and usability standards to technical team members, developers, and agency stakeholders.
- 8 Years
- Front-end engineering experience writing semantic HTML5 and modern, responsive CSS/SASS.
- 8 Years
- Experience integrating interface designs into Angular or MVC .
NET framework environments.
- 8 Years
- Experience utilizing or extending the U.
S. Web Design System (USWDS).
- 8 Years
- User Experience Research, Usability testing, Usability labs, Heuristic evaluation, User journey mapping, Persona development
- 8 Years
- Information architecture, Card sorting, Wireframing, Interactive prototyping, UX design, WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliance, Focus management
- 8 Years
- Keyboard navigation mechanics, Color contrast requirements, Accessibility auditing, technical communication, Design system vs usage This position is available on a corp-to-corp basis or as a W2 position with a competitive benefits package. DataStaff, Inc. offers medical, dental, and vision coverage options as well as paid vacation, sick, and holiday leave. As many of our opportunities are long-term, we also have a 401k program available for employees after 6 months