As a member of our coveted Racing team, you will contribute to developing and executing the UX vision for those games. Participating in building innovative, user-centered design solutions that promote ease of use and provide outstanding player experiences that are optimised for mobile devices.
NaturalMotion Racing are responsible for the hugely-successful CSR Racing series with development teams in London and Birmingham in the UK, and Bangalore in India. Our Birmingham studio, located in the centre of the UK’s cosmopolitan ‘second city’, is a new and growing studio focussed on NaturalMotion Racing’s future.
Job Purpose
We are seeking a Lead UX Designer to head up UX Design in Birmingham. Working with our team in London, you will ensure that features on our next racing title are implemented to AAA standards, whilst also breaking new UX ground as we implement cross-platform play in our next game.
You will advise and mentor other UX designers and collaborate with UI artists to ensure our players have a high-quality and consistent experience across a wide range of different devices.
Key Roles & Responsibilities
As a Birmingham’s Lead UX Designer, your role will report into our UX Lead in our London Studio. Your role will be to ensure all UX Design in Birmingham is actioned to the highest standards and will take point on the implementation of cross-platform UX design for our next game.
Breaking new ground: We are a rare example of a game which will allow cross-platform play, and you'll be taking the lead on how to provide our players with a platform-native experience whilst maintaining a consistent game flow and brand identity.
Leading The User Experience: You’ll be responsible for working with multiple feature teams as well as the cross-platform team and ensuring that UX is implemented to a consistent high standard across each. You will mentor UX designers in Birmingham.
Close Collaboration with the UI team: Working in unison with the UI team to deliver a peerless user experience with beautifully crafted visuals free of friction. Defining what is ‘best in class’ for a user experience in a cross-platform, mobile-first game.
Maintaining Interaction & Visual Consistency: Following existing interaction methods you will become a champion for maintaining consistency across all areas of the game.
Representing The Players’ Needs: You will be responsible for developing the user experience of game content and features that will be enjoyed by many millions of players and a truly international audience.
Required Experience & Skills
- Knowledge about, and experience with, modern UX design in digital channels which can be applied to mobile and console games making.
- An understanding and interest in emerging trends in digital platform UX
- Experience with user research and hypothesis-led user testing
- A real passion for gaming, especially mobile. You can reference the best and worst user experiences and apply the lessons to your work.
- Familiarity with a range of software you are comfortable with rapid prototyping and iteration of ideas, listening to feedback and exploring options to make the game stronger.
- An innate ability to develop prototypes that work across multiple aspect ratios and platforms.
- A passion for investigating new and emerging trends that push user experiences forwards.
- Comfortable with presenting and discussing the ergonomics of screen layout you can rationalise the interaction of every element and propose simple solutions to sophisticated problems.
- You can demonstrate experience of crafting for multiple platforms with scalability in mind
Desirable Experience & Skills
- Experience creating UX in Console and/or Mobile Games
- A background in Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design or related areas
- Experience with Proto.IO or similar rapid-prototyping tools
- Unity / Unreal engine experience
What Do We Offer?
- Competitive salary, discretionary annual bonus scheme and Zynga stock allowance
- Contributory pension scheme
- 25 days holiday, plus public holidays and Christmas shutdown
- Private medical care and healthcare cash plan
- Life insurance and critical illness insurance
- Discounted gym membership and free weekly yoga class
- Flexible working hours
- Free fruit, snacks & soft drinks provided daily, as well as free lunch on Fridays
- Annual season ticket loan and cycle to work scheme
- Summer and Christmas parties and Happy Hour every Friday