Position Title: Designer UX Standard II
Duration: 6 Months - Long Term
Location: Washington, DC 20433
Hybrid Onsite: 4 days per week from Day 1, with a full transition to 100% onsite anticipated soon.Position overview
Looking UX Designer for its geospatial portfolio. The contractor will help turn complex information and location-based workflows into clear, accessible, and useful digital experiences. Working with product owners, users, front-end engineers, and other delivery colleagues, the designer will lead work from discovery and interaction concepts through validated, implementation-ready interface designs.
This is a hands-on product design role centered on Figma. The successful candidate must be able to move beyond static screens: from early sketches and user flows to high-fidelity, responsive, component-based interactive prototypes that engineers can implement. The core deliverable is not a set of pictures or Photoshop mockups; it is a coherent design system and fully specified user experience, with working component behaviour, states, and clear handoff guidance.
Responsibilities - Discovery and research. Work with product owners and users to understand goals, tasks, constraints, and pain points. Plan and conduct appropriately scoped user interviews, usability tests, and heuristic reviews; synthesize qualitative and quantitative findings into evidence-based design decisions and prioritized improvements.
- Information architecture and interaction design. Map journeys, task flows, navigation, and content hierarchy for complex workflows. Develop low-fidelity sketches and wireframes, iterate with stakeholders, and translate approved concepts into complete interaction patterns covering primary paths, edge cases, empty states, errors, loading, permissions, and feedback.
- Figma-first design and prototyping. Own and organize Figma files as living product assets. Use auto layout, reusable components and variants, variables/design tokens where appropriate, and shared libraries to create high-fidelity responsive layouts and interactive prototypes. Demonstrate interactions, transitions, and states in Figma so that flows can be tested and reviewed before development.
- Design-system stewardship. Create, extend, document, and maintain UI components and patterns using scalable, atomic-design principles. Establish consistent typography, spacing, colour, iconography, and responsive behaviour. Reuse existing patterns when appropriate, identify gaps, and coordinate component changes with the front-end team to limit design–code drift.
- Geospatial experiences. Design usable map and location-based interfaces where applicable, including navigation, search, filters, layer controls, legends, tooltips, selection states, data comparisons, and contextual detail panels. Make dense spatial information comprehensible and address interactions between maps, charts, tables, and other views. Consider varying devices, screen sizes, map interaction modes, and users who need alternatives to purely visual interpretation.
- Accessibility and inclusive design. Apply accessibility principles throughout research, design, and review. Specify usable keyboard interactions and focus order, readable hierarchy and contrast, clear labels and feedback, and accessible alternatives for map-based content where feasible. Collaborate with engineers to resolve accessibility issues during implementation, not only at final review.
- Engineering handoff and delivery. Work closely with front-end engineers to make designs ready for implementation: provide organized Figma components, specifications, responsive breakpoints, content, interaction rules, assets, and annotations for unusual behaviours. Review implemented interfaces against approved designs, discuss technical constraints, make pragmatic refinements, and help close design-quality gaps before release.
- Collaboration and iteration. Explain design rationale clearly, facilitate constructive feedback, and balance user needs, feasibility, and delivery priorities in an Agile team. Use product feedback, usability findings, and available analytics to refine released experiences. Where AI-assisted tools add value, use them responsibly and in accordance with organizational requirements for data handling and review.
Expected deliverables - Discovery artifacts for prioritized workflows, such as research summaries, user journeys, information architecture, and testable design hypotheses.
- Low-fidelity concepts and task flows that show the interaction approach before high-fidelity production.
- Organized Figma files containing responsive, high-fidelity screens and clickable prototypes for agreed workflows, including relevant states and edge cases.
- Reusable Figma components, variants, tokens or variables where appropriate, and concise design-system guidance aligned with implementation needs.
- Developer-ready handoff for each agreed feature: component usage, responsive behaviour, interaction and accessibility notes, content and assets, with questions resolved through collaboration.
- Usability-test findings, design revisions, and documented decisions; design review of implementation and a clear record of outstanding issues.
Required qualifications - At least five years of relevant UX or product design experience, with demonstrable ownership of web and mobile or responsive product experiences.
- Expert-level day-to-day proficiency in Figma, including auto layout, components and variants, interactive prototypes, design tokens or variables, and scalable design libraries. Candidates must be able to show original editable Figma work-not only exported screens or visual mockups.
- A portfolio of end-to-end work showing the progression from problem definition, research, and low-fidelity exploration to high-fidelity, component-based interactive design and shipped or implementation-ready outcomes. Candidates must be able to explain their own contribution and design decisions.
- Strong interaction design, information architecture, user-flow mapping, wireframing, visual hierarchy, typography, grids, layout, and responsive/adaptive design skills.
- Hands-on experience with user interviews, usability testing, and heuristic evaluation, and the ability to synthesize qualitative and quantitative evidence into actionable design choices.
- Experience creating or maintaining design systems and UI kits using reusable components and atomic-design principles, with attention to consistent implementation.
- Working knowledge of accessibility and inclusive-design principles and the ability to specify accessible behaviour for complex interfaces.
- Ability to use behavioural insights thoughtfully, articulate design rationale, influence stakeholders, and partner closely with front-end engineers in a fast-paced Agile team.
- Ability to incorporate AI or large language model tools into the design process responsibly when appropriate, while protecting confidential information and verifying outputs.
Preferred qualifications - Experience designing geospatial or GIS applications, interactive maps, spatial-data exploration, analytical dashboards, or data-heavy enterprise products.
- Familiarity with UX or product analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Hotjar.
- Experience using motion design or microinteractions where they improve usability.
- Experience facilitating design-thinking workshops or design sprints, or working with front-end component libraries and design-to-code workflows.
EEO:
“Mindlance is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of – Minority/Gender/Disability/Religion/LGBTQI/Age/Veterans.”