Design System Specialist

About the role
Camden is building somewhere everyone can thrive, by making our borough the best place to live, work, study and visit. Because we’re not just home to UK’s fast-growing economy. We’re home to the most important conversations happening today. And we’re making radical social change a reality, so that nobody gets left behind.
Here’s where you can help decide a better future for us all.
You will be designing digital products and services, working in the open with the user at the centre of all you do and working across all channels within a service.
As Camden’s Design System Specialist reporting to the Experience Lead, you will be instrumental in building on our front-end library to create a robust, unified, and adaptable design system - a set of components, patterns and guidance that will serve as the foundations for all our citizen-facing digital products and services.
Your key responsibilities include leading the development and implementation of the design system – working closely with developers, product managers and service designers on how to make it operational and ensuring it aligns with our digital vision and goals. 

The things you’ll achieve
You will lead our efforts to design with accessibility and inclusivity at the forefront, ensuring compliance with and surpassing WCAG AA standards.
You will collaborate very closely with developers, content designers and service designers and owners, to conceptualize, create and refine the design system components and guidelines to work for prototypes, external partners as well as internal product teams.
You will champion best practice, emphasizing the centrality of the design system in our product development process.
You will be confident and experienced in using research and analytics to improve your work.
You will employ a diverse range of prototyping methods to validate and refine design concepts, preferably in code and/or collaborating with developers.
You will establish a design system that can be used internally and externally.
You will deliver clear, associated processes for additions, updates and improvements to our design system elements.
You will deliver Improvements to our design standards as a result of your work and leadership.

About you
Experience
• Significant experience of contributing and creating Design Systems
• Experience working in multidisciplinary teams to design and build products and services with evidence of improvements made
• Experience delivering user journey maps, wireframes and artefacts showing an understanding of dependencies and risks
• Experience of creating and validating dynamic prototypes e.g. for different screen sizes and devices
• Experience of various digital design tools, such as Figma or Sketch
• Experience producing designs that simplify approaches and increase impact as a result
• Proven experience of building positive relationships with a range of both internal and external stakeholders
You will have a relentless focus on the importance of the detail of interaction design to making digital products and services truly inclusive and accessible.
You will have an understanding of service design principles, practices and methods and of product development methodology, frameworks and principles.
You will have the ability to influence, persuade and communicate and to make data and evidence driven decisions

Skills and Abilities
• Ability to use evidence and mapping to guide design decisions
• Able to contribute positively to a high-performing multidisciplinary product team
• The ability to understand technical complexity and risks
• Ability to prototype interactions and services – which may be undertaken collaboratively with service designers
• Ability to build clear visualisations of service and user journeys to help teams plan and prioritise work
• Able to build great relationships with a wide range of disciplines
• Relentless user focus, with the ability to contribute to user research and the translation of user feedback into design decisions
• Desire to take an active part in the cross-government digital and design community.

Knowledge
• Excellent knowledge of usercentred design methods
• Excellent knowledge of accessibility standards and best practice
• Knowledge of the crossgovernment DDAT framework
• Good knowledge of HTML and CSS
• Good understanding and experience 

Skills and Abilities
• Ability to use evidence and mapping to guide design decisions
• Able to contribute positively to a high-performing multidisciplinary product team
• The ability to understand technical complexity and risks
• Ability to prototype interactions and services – which may be undertaken collaboratively with service designers
• Ability to build clear visualisations of service and user journeys to help teams plan and prioritise work
• Able to build great relationships with a wide range of disciplines
• Relentless user focus, with the ability to contribute to user research and the translation of user feedback into design decisions
• Desire to take an active part in the cross-government digital and design community.

People management
There are no line management responsibilities in this role.
Work environment
As part of the Digital Products and Services team you will have the option to work remotely but are expected to work from our main offices, 5PS, in Kings Cross.
Who you will be working with
You will collaborate very closely with developers, content designers and service designers and owners, to conceptualize, create and refine the design system components and guidelines to work for prototypes, external partners as well as internal product teams.
The application process
Anonymised Application – in keeping with Camden’s commitment to inclusion the recruitment to this role is anonymised and supports the objective of reducing the impact of unconscious bias. The application process is supported by a combination of informal conversations, technical tests, and formal panel interviews.