Company Overview

Nuance is the pioneer and leader in conversational artificial intelligence (AI) innovations that bring intelligence to everyday work and life. We deliver solutions that understand, analyze, and respond to people, amplifying human intelligence to increase productivity and improve security. With decades of both domain and AI expertise, we work with thousands of organizations across a wide range of industries. 

Join our team! At Nuance, we are constantly reinventing how people connect with technology and with each other. Our AI-powered solutions empower organizations to transform “business as usual.” For decades, the world’s leading financial, healthcare, telecommunications, retailers, and government organizations have trusted Nuance to bring them award-winning solutions that deliver more meaningful outcomes and empower a smarter, more connected world. From clinical speech recognition technologies that free physicians to spend more time caring for patients to real-time intelligence that powers billions of customer interactions, we’re deeply committed to helping organizations push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Job Summary

Position Summary

As a Principal Conversation User Experience Designer, you will be designing the caller interaction for speech-enabled applications.  You will work on a multidisciplinary team of colleagues and domain experts to discover user requirements, and to match those needs against customer goals.  Among other activities, you will validate functionality choices; design intuitive and adaptive call flows; write natural, conversational, and personalized dialogs; anticipate user responses; define grammars; and direct voice talents in the recording studio.  You'll perform Usability Testing with consumers to further refine functionality and design choices.  As a Principal Conversation User Experience Designer, you will need to learn about caller populations and work effectively with customers on each engagement, while simultaneously working toward the customer's financial goals and remaining the authority on best practices in user-centered design.  Your successes will be measured by a combination of business targets you reach or surpass; your relationships with customers, partners, and the team; and the positive impression your designs leave in the minds of callers. 

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Discover and analyze requirements from both the customer's and the user’s perspective.  Be THE advocate for the user amid shifting and often unclear business requirements.
• Create effective speech user interface designs, including call flows, dialogs, functional logic, and prompts to match the established system persona.
•  Create effective UX designs including speech interaction flows; functional logic; and both verbal and non-verbal auditory cues to match the established requirements.
• Assist in implementing these designs, interacting with developers, directing voice talents, and performing usability tests.
• Analyze performance of the user interface in the field with regard to performance metrics and caller experience, and recommend specific changes to improve caller satisfaction and transaction completion.
• Use your experience on your specific projects to augment our evolving body of best practices.
• Represent our UI approach and philosophy to top Fortune 100 companies.
• Design alternative solutions, evaluating them to choose the best approach.  Meet and collaborate with customers, users, and development partners to validate conceptual designs.
• Approach design problems with a user-centered design methodology.
• Compose user flows, story maps, and highly detailed artifacts using text, diagrams, illustrations, and/or prototypes to outline product, feature, and function specifications as required to best support the Agile Software Development Lifecycle.
• Support ad hoc project requests that may be unrelated to customer requirements or product knowledge (e.g., the preparation of workshop packages, demos, and conceptual mock-ups)
• Facilitate presentations and discussions with customers, users, and developers to drive resolution on proposed features and functionality.
• Maintain familiarity with other company products and competitive products to ensure thought and design leadership.

Knowledge, Skills, and Qualifications:

Education: At least a BA / BS or equivalent experience in human factors engineering, product interface design, linguistics, cognitive science, experimental psychology, technical writing, or a related field

Years of Experience:  8 years of experience

Required Skills:

• Creativity, strong logic skills, and the ability to work in a dynamic, challenging, and consultative environment
• Native-level English fluency
• Strong Microsoft Windows skills, including MS Office
• Strong communication skills and the ability to develop and confidently deliver polished presentations to customers and internal teams
• Speech recognition software and/or telephony experience
• Experience with Speech / Voice User Interface / Natural Language Voice User Interface design is a plus
• Demonstrable audio engineering experience
• Availability to travel on-site with customers up to 15%

Preferred Skills:

• Professional writing experience
• Project Management experience
• Experience working in a recording studio, as or with a professional Voice Talent
• Experience creating UI/UX for iPhone and Android and an understanding of mobile design patterns and their application when creating UI task flows and artifacts
• Basic understanding of a programming language (e.g., Perl, Python, or Java).
• Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop or equivalent vector-editing experience
• Near-native command of a second language (Spanish preferred)

Additional Information

Nuance offers a compelling and rewarding work environment. We offer market competitive salaries, bonus, equity, benefits, meaningful growth and development opportunities and a casual yet technically challenging work environment. Join our dynamic, entrepreneurial team and become part of our continuing success.  

Nuance celebrates diversity and is proud to be an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action workplace. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, military and veteran status, disability, genetics, or any other category protected by law or Nuance policy.  If you need an accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please call 781-565-5086 and let us know.