1. Design Lead
ABOUT YLABS
YLabs is a leading global design and research organization working to improve health and economic opportunity for young people 10–24 years old. Founded in 2016 at the Harvard Innovation Lab, YLabs has worked in Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Central America in partnership with young people to design health programming to address key challenges in sexual reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and mental health. Find out more about our projects here: https://www.ylabsglobal.org/work
Our team of physicians, designers, economists, developers, public health professionals, and educators bring a unique mix of human-centered design, adolescent health, economic and health outcome evaluation, behavioral science, and implementation know-how to the global problems facing youth.
We have offices in the US and Rwanda, and are currently supporting our teams to work remotely during COVID-19.
SUMMARY
YLabs is seeking a Design Lead to provide leadership and support YLabs Rwanda’s design team growth and projects in Rwanda and East Africa. The Design Lead will take initiative in supporting the growth and capacity of YLabs Rwanda’s design team across all design functions, while also building capacity in key human-centered design and additional design areas across the entire YLabs Rwanda team. The Design Lead is responsible for ensuring high quality, innovation and delivery of all YLabs Rwanda projects.
The Design Lead will also play a global role and be responsible for leadership in YLabs’ global visual and communications design areas. The Design Lead will work collaboratively with visual, product and service designers across all YLabs’ office, ensuring that YLabs Rwanda’s design function supports YLabs’ global vision and objectives.
The ideal candidate will be excited to work with a dynamic interdisciplinary team of designers and public health professionals to support the development of design solutions for some of the biggest challenges facing young people in the East Africa region. This position may also support future YLabs projects in the South Asia region.
CORE RESPONSIBILITIES
- Design Leadership: Build design capacity for Rwanda and regional based projects. This includes training and capacity building all staff, providing strategic guidance on design function growth within the region, and managing regionally based design staff.
- Visual Design: Lead YLabs’ visual and communication design practice and maintain a high quality of deliverables across internal and external projects. This includes training and mentorship for the design team within the region and critique of design materials.
- Project Leadership: Lead regional human-centered design and communication design projects. This includes and is not limited to managing a project team, communications with donors and partners, guiding the design direction of the project and working closely with the regional operations team to manage the project successfully.
- Communication: Translate and communicate complex ideas across departments and stakeholders as well as the ability to simplify those complex ideas into succinct data points.
- Capacity building: Build design Utilise and involve junior designers in the design process, building their design capacity and fluency with CyberRwanda product and service.
- Feedback: Collecting strategic feedback and metrics from your designs and creating improvements on the platform based on data.
YOU HAVE
- Proven experience leading high quality youth-focused economic empowerment or sexual and reproductive health focused HCD projects in East Africa
- Experience leading and training, including developing the training tools, all stages of an HCD design project including user research and testing, prototyping, and developing user-centered deliverables.
- Experience conducting human-centered design processes with young people.
- 2- 4 years of experience leading and managing a visual design team that supports organizational and project level branding.
- Extensive experience in hiring, collaborating with and managing freelance designers and/or other vendors.
- Experience working across multiple cultural contexts and country offices.
- Experience working and managing external partners, including key stakeholders and donors.
- Proven experience crafting innovative design solutions within complex service systems is a plus.
- 4 years of experience in human-centered design methodologies and practice.
- At least 7 years of experience in visual design, service design, or design research is required.
- Masters degree in Interaction Design, Service Design, Social Innovation Design, Graphic Design or related design discipline preferred.
- Worked and/or lived in East Africa or South Asia
LOCATION
Under normal circumstances, this role would be based out of the YLabs Rwanda Kigali office. Given the current circumstances due to COVID-19, it is possible to conduct this role remotely within GMT+0 to GMT+4. There is an expectation that this role will be based in Kigali once normal office life resumes.
BENEFITS
Salary range: RWF16,150,000 to RWF38,000,000 gross,[1] commensurate with experience.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
To apply, send a resume, cover letter, and a link or PDF of your portfolio to talent@ylabsglobal.org with the subject line “Design Lead – Rwanda”. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. All YLabs offers of employment are conditional on satisfactory background check and criminal record clearances.
ABOUT YLABS’ COMPENSATION
YLabs adheres to Project Fair’s principles and standards to establish equity in pay with the overriding principle of “equal pay for work of equal value” outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. All salary ranges are based on level within the organization and are competitive to regional and national salary benchmarks, based on the respective office location.
2. Senior Product Designer
COMPANY DESCRIPTION
Youth Development Labs (YLabs) (www.ylabsglobal.org) designs innovative solutions that address the complex and nuanced challenges young people face today. We work with governments and local partner organizations to create, scale, and evaluate solutions designed with and for young people. Our team brings a unique mix of human-centered design, adolescent medicine, implementation science, and impact evaluation to all our projects.
Founded in 2014, our organization has worked in fifteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Central America on sexual and reproductive health, mental health, HIV/AIDS, and youth employment. We have offices in Berkeley, California and Kigali, Rwanda.
SUMMARY
YLabs is seeking a Senior Product Designer to support CyberRwanda, a youth-facing digital platform that combines an edutainment webcomic, with sexual and reproductive health and economic empowerment information and online ordering of contraceptives and other pharmaceutical products. This hands-on role will support a small and nimble team with the implementation phases of a multi-year, flagship design project in using digital education to improve the health and livelihoods of urban adolescents in Rwanda.
The Senior Product Designer will take initiative in shaping the future of the program based on the needs of users, stakeholders, and our partners. He/she will be working with a team to conduct and synthesize late-stage user research (qualitative and quantitative), and advocate product changes based on user research insights.
The ideal person will be excited to work with a dynamic cross-functional team of designers and healthcare professionals flexing their creative problem-solving muscles. He/she is interested in both the “big picture” of the work and getting their hands dirty, advocating for users, synthesizing user research into meaningful insights, creating clear, compelling communication materials, and prototype services and products at different levels of fidelity. A quick thinking, curious, and empathetic designer who has experience in service and product design will thrive in this role.
CORE RESPONSIBILITIES
- Product Design: Design UX deliverables that are grounded in users’ needs e.g. convey concepts through wireframes, flows, mockups and prototypes; and communicate coordinate with product manager and developers.
- Service Design: Design offerings through the many service touchpoints required to get an offering into the end-user’s hands. This includes user-facing communications, internal workflows, technology and product interactions, scripts and inter-personal communications. Translating complicated service flows and complex sets of insights into clear, concise artifacts.
- Communication: Translate and communicate complex ideas across departments and stakeholders as well as the ability to simplify those complex ideas into succinct data points.
- Capacity building: Utilise and involve junior designers in the design process, building their design capacity and fluency with CyberRwanda product and service.
- Feedback: Collecting strategic feedback and metrics from your designs and creating improvements on the platform based on data.
- Strategic Alignment: Approach and map out ideas or problems with holistic systems thinking providing perspective on various components and how they affect each other. Work closely with the Product manager to align project goals and reporting.
YOU HAVE
- Experience and confidence in all stages of a design project including user research and testing, prototyping, service design blueprints, and developing user-centered deliverables. A firm understanding of UI design is highly desirable.
- Experience with data synthesis (ie. Google Analytics) and using data to inform and bolster your designs.
- Strong verbal and visual communications skills with both developers, content developers and designers.
- Experience in hiring, collaborating with and managing freelance designers and/or other vendors.
- Proven experience crafting innovative design solutions within complex service systems is a plus.
- 2-3 years of experience in human-centered design methodologies and practice.
- At least 3-5 years of experience in design strategy, UX, service design, or design research is required.
DESIRABLE
- Bachelor or Masters degree in Interaction Design, Service Design, User Experience Design, or related design discipline preferred.
- Experience working in Rwanda and/or East Africa broadly; proficient Kinyarwanda is a plus.
- Eligibility to work in Rwanda is a plus.
LOCATION
Under normal circumstances, this role would be based out of the YLabs Rwanda Kigali office. Given the current circumstances due to COVID-19, it is possible to conduct this role remotely within GMT+0 to GMT+4. There is an expectation that this role will be based in Kigali once normal office life resumes.
BENEFITS
Salary range: RWF16,150,000 to RWF38,000,000 gross, commensurate with experience.
Send your CV and portfolio (link or PDF) to talent@ylabsglobal.org with the email subject line “Senior Product Designer – Rwanda”.
