The Public Spaces Incubator (PSI) team is entering a new phase of exploration. Having spent the last few years heads-down building and refining our PSI toolkit with public service media (PSM) partners, we're now turning our attention to two open-ended problem spaces: AI and the future of public conversation , and news creators .
Contract UX Designer, Design Sprint Facilitator — Public Spaces Incubator
About New_ PublicWe're a nonprofit R&D lab that's reimagining social media.
- Commitment
- 30–60 hours/week
- Remote region
- Remote · United States
- Time-zone overlap
- -10, -9, -8, -7, -6, -5, 14
- Engagement
- Contractor
About this role
We work by partnering and co-designing with community stewards (moderators, administrators) and public institutions. We're in this to serve, remove obstacles to power, and make life significantly better for all people, especially folks from underestimated communities. We think this work is essential for democracy.
The Public Spaces Incubator (PSI) team is entering a new phase of exploration. Having spent the last few years heads-down building and refining our PSI toolkit with public service media (PSM) partners, we're now turning our attention to two…
Role requirements and focus
What you’ll work on
- This is not a conventional design role. You won't be shipping polished production UI — you'll be helping a small, cross-disciplinary team (a product director, engineers, a researcher, a PM) rapidly enter unfamiliar territory, form…
- Co-plan, co-lead and co-facilitate design sprints on the themes of AI/public conversation and news creators, including structuring the day-by-day agenda, sketching activities, voting, and prototyping.
- Partner with our product director, staff researcher, as well as other internal stakeholders to help scope each sprint into a clear, well-bounded shared brief, and to help shape the shared knowledge base (research insights, subject-matter…
- Guide the team through the "map & understand → sketch & diverge → discuss & decide → storyboard & prototype → demo & retro" arc, including designing sketching exercises (e.g., Crazy 8s, worst-idea/flip-it) suited to each problem space.
- Coach engineers and other non-designers on the design process, especially writing user stories, mapping user journeys, and building user flows.
What they’re looking for
- Substantial experience planning and facilitating design sprints both remotely and in-person, ideally including experience adapting the canonical sprint format to suit the needs of the team and the problem space (e.g. smartly compressing the…
- Strong grounding in the fundamentals of UX process — user stories, user journeys, user flows, wireframing — and skilled at coaching non-designers (engineers, researchers, PMs) through these steps.
- 3+ years of experience in product design, including expertise in Figma and experience working on cross-functional product teams and shipping products/services.
- Organized and excellent facilitator and communicator: able to hold a room (over video or in person), synthesize divergent input in real time, and keep a small team aligned and moving through a tightly scheduled sprint.
- Adept at providing the right structure and scaffolding that will accelerate a team’s exploration of ambiguous, open-ended problem spaces.
Skills and focus
- Product & UX/UI
- Contractor
Useful context
Specialty
Product & UX/UI
Work type
Contractor
Source
Himalayas
Last verified
Jul 25
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