Senior UX Designer​/Researcher; Accessibility Specialist

Senior UX Designer/Researcher (Accessibility Specialist)

• 04-Sep-2026 to 18-Sep-2026 (UTC)
• Des Moines, IA, USA
• Full Time
• 40 Weekly Hours

- The Department of Management (DOM) Division of Information Technology (DoIT) 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 Iowa Department of Education (DOE) Student Reporting in Iowa (SRI) initiative—advancing a large-scale project phase with tight milestones, with additional cross-agency support for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other state projects as needed.

- The client prefers local or regional candidates who can attend occasional in-office meetings. Travel and related expenses will not be reimbursed.

- Pure UX research and design role. No coding expected.

- Graduates of ISU HCI (Human Computer Interaction) program highly desired.

- UX research

- User-centered design

- Wireframes and prototypes

- Design recommendations

- Design documentation and annotations

- Advanced Figma

- UX research methodologies

- User flow creation

- Prototyping

- Accessibility (WCAG)

- Stakeholder collaboration

- Card sorting

- Usability testing

- Google UX Certification

- Formal UX/HCI education

- Heat maps

- Crazy Egg or similar analytics tools

- Card sorting

- User behavior analysis

- UX research experience

- Accessibility knowledge

- Design thinking methodology

- Analytics-driven recommendations

- No .NET

- No SQL

- No front-end development

- 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 behavioural 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.

- Senior UX Design Expertise:
Extensive experience designing responsive web application interfaces, wireframes, and interactive prototypes.

- Demonstrated mastery…