User Experience Designer

Hybrid onsite in Toronto, ON contract with occasional travel to partner project sites for field research, Candidate needs to be flexible working in EST or PST time zones.

Top 3 experience “must haves”:

1. Proven experience in both user research and interaction design, with a portfolio showing research that directly shaped their own design work
2. A background in human-computer interaction (HCI), through a degree or equivalent professional experience
3. Experience designing for complex, data-rich applications, such as enterprise, analytics or technical tools.

Description:

• The Intelligent Construction (INTC) team is researching how conversational, multimodal experiences can help construction teams in the field and the office build and maintain a shared understanding of their project over time. Our platform turns fragmented project data (BIM models, drawings, schedules, crane camera video, and drone capture) into interfaces that adapt to site events and to the expertise of the person using them: the same data can be composed into structurally different layouts for a novice and an expert, and a single site event can recompose the whole interface at once.
• We are seeking an experience designer with a background in human-computer interaction (HCI) and strong UI design skills. The role is primarily research-driven interaction design: understanding how different members of a construction project team need information communicated to them, and turning those insights into interaction patterns and interfaces. Strong UI execution is a complementary skill, needed to make those patterns concrete, raise the quality of our existing interfaces, and work closely with engineers so that what gets built matches the design intent. Experience designing with the aid of AI is a strong plus, particularly using AI tools to move quickly from research insight to prototype while applying sound design judgment to what those tools produce.
• The work centers on dense, data-rich views (3D building models, linked project data, schedules and timelines, progress comparisons, video, and knowledge graphs) that need to be legible at a glance for construction professionals. Front-end fluency is valued, but the role is about research and design rather than production code.

Required Skills:

• Experience conducting field research (contextual inquiry, observation, interviews) and synthesizing findings into design direction
• Background in human-computer interaction (HCI), through a degree (e.g., MS or PhD in HCI, Interaction Design, or a related field) or equivalent professional experience
• Demonstrated experience in both user research and interaction design, with a portfolio showing research that directly shaped the designer's own interaction and UI work
• Strong portfolio of UI design for complex, data-dense applications (enterprise, analytics, or technical tools)
• Expert visual and interaction design: typography, layout, hierarchy, motion, and interaction states
• Advanced Figma skills, including component libraries and interactive prototyping
• Experience creating and maintaining design systems
• Data visualization design experience
• Ability to critique existing interfaces and give clear, actionable direction
• Hands-on experience designing with the aid of AI, using AI tools for research synthesis, concept exploration, and rapid prototyping, and critically evaluating and refining what those tools produce
• Proactive, independent working style: raises issues early, seeks out what they need from engineers, and reviews their own work before sharing
• Responsive design for desktop and tablet/iPad interfaces

Preferred Skills:

• Experience planning and running usability studies or user evaluations
• Experience working in a research environment or contributing to HCI publications
• Experience with AI-assisted prototyping and code-generation tools to build working, testable prototypes
• Front-end fluency (HTML/CSS, React) for prototyping and close collaboration with engineers
• Experience designing 3D or spatial interfaces (web 3D viewers, BIM, digital twins)
• Experience designing AI, conversational, and multimodal interfaces, including adaptive or generated UI
• Experience designing for mobile or field use alongside desktop or office workflows
• Familiarity with construction or AEC industry applications

Minimum education:

• Bachelor’s degree in HCI, Interaction Design, UX/UI Design, or a related field (Master’s preferred), or equivalent experience