About the Role

As a Service Designer, you will play a critical role in transforming complex administrative services by applying human-centered design principles. You will work closely with diverse stakeholders-including researchers, administrators, IT teams, and leadership-to redesign processes, improve user experiences, and co-create future-state service models.

Key Responsibilities

• User Research & Insight Generation: Conduct interviews, surveys, workshops, and data analysis to uncover user needs, behaviors, and challenges.
• Service Mapping & Analysis: Create service blueprints, journey maps, and ecosystem diagrams to analyze current services and identify areas for improvement.
• Co-Design & Ideation: Facilitate collaborative workshops to generate ideas and design innovative service concepts.
• Prototyping & Testing: Develop low- and high-fidelity prototypes to test and refine solutions with end users.
• Solution Design & Implementation Support: Translate insights into actionable service specifications and support implementation alongside technical and operational teams.
• Measurement & Evaluation: Define KPIs to assess the impact of service design interventions; iterate based on user feedback and performance data.
• Advocacy & Communication: Promote human-centered design practices and effectively present findings and recommendations to stakeholders.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Engage with business analysts, project managers, communications teams, and technical specialists to drive integrated service improvements.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in Service Design, UX, HCI, Psychology, Public Administration, or a related field-or equivalent professional experience.
• Minimum 3 years of professional experience in service design or UX roles within complex organizational settings.
• Demonstrated experience with service design tools and methods (e.g., journey mapping, blueprinting, persona development).
• Experience navigating administrative or research environments, especially in large institutions.
• Strong communication and facilitation skills with the ability to engage diverse audiences.

Preferred:

• Experience in research administration services (e.g., post-award processes, ethics review, grant management).
• Familiarity with Canadian research funding organizations and related policies (e.g., CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC).
• Master's degree in a related field.
• Experience with change management or digital transformation initiatives.
• Familiarity with enterprise systems used in research or finance in public institutions.

Skills & Competencies

• Empathy and user-centric mindset
• Systems thinking
• Visual communication and storytelling
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Co-creation and workshop facilitation
• Adaptability and resilience
• Strong collaboration and teamwork