Description

Closing Date: 02-May-2024

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.
Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
Benefits- We offer a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days holiday (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.
Freelancers are eligible to apply for an internal role if they are on a Worker Contract and they have worked continuously for 6 months. If they have worked for less than 6 months continuously or have a break of 3 weeks or more between engagements, they must seek Divisional HR approval to apply for an internal role prior to submitting an application.
If they are unsure which contract they are on, they can speak to their booker or the HR BP, however if it helps - both a PAYE freelance or Modus Gross contract is considered a Worker contract and covered by the Worker terms found here.
Job Introduction
The News Design team is a multi-platform, multidisciplinary team within BBC News.
We are responsible for the design and visualisation of a story end to end, across all platforms from our website and app to our flagship news broadcasts and social accounts. The team brings together digital designers, broadcast designers, and developers to provide compelling visual coverage of the biggest and most significant stories.
As our Senior Designer - Design Systems, you will work closely with the Creative Director - Storytelling & Formats, and will be responsible for creating, maintaining, and evolving a design system that ensures a consistent and high-quality user experience across all our editorial focused content outputs including broadcast. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to define and enforce design guidelines, patterns, and components, all while infusing the power of editorial storytelling into our design system. Your role will encompass both design, leadership, and mentoring a small team of designers and engineers to implement and iterate on our young design system
Main Responsibilities
Design System Development with a Storytelling Focus
Extensive experience creating, maintaining, and contributing to a design system that not only adheres to best design practices but focuses on key storytelling components and formats. Evidenced experience that the design system enhanced the user experience and delivered on measurable goals.
Evidenced experience with concepts such as component composition, variations and properties. You have worked with, and know the value of design tokens.
Can create advanced prototypes utilising real content and data; harnessing video or animation when necessary.
Fluent in responsive design and a systems thinker adept at problem-solving at a macro and micro scale across multiple problem spaces.
Collaborates with stakeholders effectively to gather requirements and feedback, aligning system choices with our cross-platform storytelling goals.
Strong knowledge of UI, branding, and product design. All deliverables and communication materials are effective and polished. Can devise new concepts that elevate brand expression within the experience in elegant and relevant ways.
Understands the big picture, but also when to focus on the details, and deliver accurate considered solutions for the user.
Act as a custodian of consistent design and the build once, use everywhere narrative.
Leadership and Collaboration
Proven ability to lead a small team of designers and developers responsible for creating, implementing and maintaining the design system.
Fosters collaboration and communication between design, engineering, product and editorial, emphasising the importance of editorial storytelling in the user experience.
Ability to inspire high design confidence in stakeholders, communicate the thinking behind the work, and show self-assurance with your presentation, narrative and rationale.
Conduct design reviews and provide constructive feedback to ensure adherence to the design system's guidelines.
Design Guidelines and Documentation
Create and maintain comprehensive design guidelines and documentation that incorporate editorial storytelling principles into the design system.
Ensure that all team members understand the guidelines and follow them consistently.
Provide training and support to help teams weave narratives into their design choices effectively.
Component Library Management
Develop and maintain a library of reusable UI components and assets that can support engaging storytelling in our experiences, both digital and broadcast.
Ensure that these components are easily accessible and well-documented for use across projects and platforms, aligning them with our brand narrative.
Standardise naming conventions and version control for components.
Quality Assurance
Conduct regular audits of components, formats and services to ensure alignment with the design system.
Identify and address any deviations or inconsistencies in storytelling.
Work closely with teams to resolve design-related issues that impact the user's storytelling experience.
User Research and Feedback for Storytelling Enhancement
Experienced at gathering and analysing user feedback and insights, specifically focusing on how storytelling impacts their experience.
Conduct usability testing with an emphasis on narrative engagement to validate the effectiveness of design system components.
Iterate on the design system based on qualitative and quantitative data, user narratives and evolving design trends.
Championing data informed UI and UX design, advocating for the user - always.
Are you the right candidate?
Experience in Digital design, HCI, or a related field.
6+ years of experience in UX/UI design and design system development ideally with a strong editorial focus.
Strong portfolio of UX and design systems work/case studies demonstrating your principles, methodologies, and approaches.
Proficiency in design tools (e.g., Figma, Storybook).
Strong leadership and team management skills.
Excellent communication and collaboration abilities with a passion for editorial storytelling.
Knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is a big plus.
Good knowledge of accessibility and usability principles.
Finely tuned problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
About the BBC
The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.
We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.
Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.
We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.
We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.
To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.