Design Researcher at International Rescue Committee

Sector: Research & Development

Employment Category: Consultant

Employment Type: Full-Time

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Job Description

This role can be based in any country where IRC is authorized to operate.

Job Overview:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is among the world’s leading humanitarian relief and development organizations. For 80 years, the IRC has been at the forefront of every major humanitarian initiative to assist people uprooted by war, persecution, or civil conflict. IRC staff go to the toughest places, implement both immediate response and long lasting programs, and conduct the type of applied research and advocacy the aid community needs to continually push itself to find better solutions for people. In all its country programs and in the US, IRC teams partner with local governments, community organizations and private sector companies to achieve measurable improvements in people’s economic well-being, safety, health and education.

The IRC’s Airbel Impact Lab designs, tests, and scales life-changing, cost-effective solutions for people affected by conflict and disaster. By applying the IRC’s deep technical expertise and field experience with a range of skills from the behavioral sciences, human-centered design, rigorous research, and multi-disciplinary problem-solving in humanitarian contexts, we work to develop breakthrough solutions that combine creativity and rigor, openness and expertise, and a desire to think afresh with the experience of a large-scale implementing organization.

The Design Researcher will work on a new education project within the Airbel Impact Lab called “Pop-Up Tanzania”. In partnership with Onebillion.org, Pop-Up Tanzania is a tablet based adaptive learning project that has the potential to reach 3,000 children in 1,000 households in the Kigoma region of Tanzania, and to considerably advance Airbel’s digital education portfolio by answering a key question: How can IRC successfully implement autonomous learning (AL) tools to respond to the needs of last mile learners during a crisis when it arises? This is a critical opportunity to refine the steps we need to take to get a tablet based AL program ready for deployment in an emergency; as well as provide out-of-school children access to a tailored, engaging and fun educational program in the safety of their own homes without the need for a facilitator.

The Design Researcher will lead in-depth qualitative interviews with caregivers during the design and implementation phases of the project. They will build insights and develop recommendations for improving the program and report back to the project team about their findings. The Design Researcher will create an easy to understand and actionable design research report summarizing their findings and recommendations for each phase of work.

Major Responsibilities:

The Design Research Consultant will lead in-depth remote qualitative interviews with caregivers enrolled in the program, build insights, provide recommendations and report out findings. Specifically, their responsibilities will include:

Develop all research plans in concert with team
Conducting 50, 45-minute phone interviews with caregivers and other stakeholders during the design phase of the program
Conducting 100 phone interviews with caregivers and other stakeholders during the implementation phase of the program
Transcribe notes in agreed upon format and upload into shared drive
Build insights from interviews and synthesize user research based
Identify user needs and prioritize needs based on Theory of Change
Develop prioritized use cases for product and program development
Design customer validation activities and concept and usability testing
Provide recommendations for improvements to service blueprints to better meet the needs of our users
Write design research report summarizing findings after the design phase and the implementation phase
Assist the Project Lead with embedding outputs into final program and research reports
Estimated scope & sequencing of work (to be confirmed in final contract):

Design phase: October 2020 – November 2020, 15 days

Design customer validation activities and concept and usability testing (2 days)
50 interviews (7 days)
Transcribe notes (1 day)
Build insights / prioritize user needs / develop recommendations (2 days)
Write design research report for design phase summarizing findings for this stage of work (3 days)

Implementation phase: December 2020 – January 2021, 24 days

Design customer validation activities and concept and usability testing (2 days)
100 interviews (14 days)
Transcribe notes (2 days)
Build insights / prioritize user needs / develop recommendations (3 days)
Write design research report for implementation phase summarizing findings for this stage of work (3 days)

Reporting: February 2021, 2 days

Assist with embedding outputs into final program and research reports (2 days)

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: Research & Innovation, Pop-Up Tanzania Project Lead

Position directly supervises: N/A

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

Internal: Research & Innovation team working on autonomous learning in education, Pop-Up Tanzania team

External: Partners for Pop-Up Tanzania, including OneBillion

Qualifications:

Required:

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

Curious. Enjoys learning new things. Creative. Excellent oral and written communication skills. Self-driven.

When interviewing users, open-minded, non-judgemental, a good listener.

When building insights, able to understand what others really mean when they share negatives or positives about the program, comfortable connecting dots between feedback, ability to read between the lines.

Team work: Able to work with remote, multi-cultural, and multi-disciplinary teams

Language Skills: Native Swahili speaker, Fluent English speaker

Technical experience: Highly proficient in Microsoft Office and G Suite

Appreciated:

Education: Bachelor’s degree in field related to human-centered design, design research, marketing, qualitative research, qualitative data management and analysis

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies: Demonstrated experience (3-5 years) collecting, managing and analyzing qualitative data, ideally in resource limited settings.

Technical Expertise: Knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, Graphic design and illustration skills

Sector Experience: Experience working in development and/or humanitarian sector

Important note: Please include links to a portfolio, website or work samples when submitting your application.

Working Environment: Remote

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Equality, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

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Tags: International Rescue Committee (IRC)