UX Design Intern – Fall 2022

As a UX Design intern, you will collaborate with UX Design professionals to design and enhance user-experiences across Norfolk Southern. In a team environment, you will proactively research and identify customers’ needs early in the design process in order to produce and iterate intuitive and user-centered design solutions.

In addition to knowledge of user-experience fundamentals, the UX Design intern should also possess non-technical abilities such as communication skills, critical thinking, ability to conceptualize a design, and openness to being taught and critiqued. UX Design, at its core, is based on empathizing with users, teammates, and management in order to bridge the needs of all stakeholders, resulting in innovative user-centered experiences and increased ROI.

 

Working with Organizational Change Management (OCM):

UX Design adds a lot to the strategy and process of change management, as both spaces are focused on people and critical for solution adoption. Alongside the OCM team, UX Designers are involved in projects from day one and can integrate with either Agile or Waterfall. UX Designers assist with involvement in stakeholder and user conversations. Working in parallel, UX design integrates with OCM by ensuring solutions are what the user needs, wants, and that their problems are efficiently solved.

Working with Project Teams:

The UX Design intern will participate in user research, examining common needs and pain points to fully understand users, add context to projects, comprehend the problem-at-hand, and propose user-centered solutions. After collecting quantitative and qualitative data, UX Design collaborates with project teams to promote empathy of users and their pain points, outline the intended user experience and process workflow, effectively communicate design rationale, as well as present other deliverables related to the user-centered design process (user flows, sitemaps, wireframes, prototypes, etc.). Alongside Technical UAT, UX Designers observe end-users interacting with the product to pinpoint successes and areas for improvement.

Working with Agile Teams:

To work in parallel with the Agile team, UX Designers should be embedded in meetings such as release planning, stand-up, retro, and other meetings where UX might be discussed or add value. UX Designers should be involved from the beginning to be able to understand the requirements, collaborate in the creation of user stories, identify assumptions about user behavior, involve user research and usability tests to build empathy for users, and determine how user workflows and features should work.

Education:

Pursing a Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree, or equivalent certification

Preferred Degree Paths: User Experience, Design, Human-Centered Interaction, Psychology, Computer Science, or other equivalent discipline

Preferred Experience & Qualifications:

• Previous design internship(s) and/or project experience in UX Design
• Portfolio demonstrating the application of design thinking methodology
• Experience in UX research by combination of quantitative data and qualitative user insights
• Experience using Adobe XD and/or other UX/UI Design tools to design, wireframe, and prototype
• Knowledge of Agile Methodology is a plus

Skills Required:

• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Strong teamwork and collaboration skills
• Self-motivated with a high degree of initiative
• Strong problem solving and analytical skills
• Expert understanding of design thinking methods and best practices
• Work with design lead to translate research findings into design artifacts, including personas, journey maps, business requirements and constraints, sketches, user flows, sitemaps, wireframes, and low- and high-fidelity mockups and prototypes
• Able to participate in user research and user testing to guide and validate design decisions
• Strong prototyping skills using Adobe XD, or other UX/UI Design software
• UI design skills including color psychology, branding, typography, and style guides
• Strong information architecture and interaction design knowledge
• Basic understanding of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS is a plus
• Strong skills with Microsoft Office Suite and Microsoft TEAMS

Responsibilities:

• Follow the established processes, policies, standards, and procedures to assure compliance with corporate policies and standards
• Align user experience efforts across products and projects
• Participate in design thinking sessions as part of new product creation or existing product iteration
• Moderate research studies and usability tests, in person and/or remotely
• Gain a thorough understanding of user needs, both existing and potential, through leading and participating in user research and usability testing
• Align with OCM team to understand users and empathize with them, through personas, to communicate with and connect with all stakeholders for user adoption
• Evaluate business requirements, user and market research, site metrics, and usability findings to drive design decisions
• Design conceptual diagrams, wireframes, visual mockups, and clickable prototypes
• Work with agile team to iterate quickly, ensuring designs are implemented as envisioned in prototypes
• Advocate for the end user and stakeholder by becoming associated with the product, empathizing with and understanding user needs and pain points
• Translate user experience requirements to development teams
• Work with product and development teams to track the effectiveness of new and existing user experiences, and make recommendations for usability improvements where needed
• Acts as a proponent of UX practices
• Advocate passionately and effectively for user-centered design with non-design audiences

Compensation:

Sophomore (28 to 59 credits) – $3,170/ month
Junior (60 to 89 credits) – $3,467/month
Senior (90 or more credits) – $3,623/month
Graduate Student – $4,333/month

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