Product Designer

Company Description Informa is a leading academic publishing, business intelligence, knowledge, and events business, creating unique content and connectivity for customers all over the world. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100. Taylor & Francis is one of the world’s largest publishers of high-quality, peer reviewed scholarly journals, books, e-books and reference works. We empower learners, thinkers and doers with trusted knowledge that advances research and enriches lives. We bring together diverse people, ideas and opinions to validate and publish the experts, theories and truths that matter. And we’ve been doing this in an unbroken arc since 1798. Our purpose is to foster human progress through knowledge. We strongly believe that this requires us to encourage and examine different ideas and voices, so that any work that meets our exacting levels of quality deserves to be included in our publications. This requires open minds, the opportunity for robust debate, and the courage to defend perspectives that stand up to scrutiny, even if they conflict with our personal beliefs or values. Because that’s the only way to find the best obtainable version of the truth and, ultimately, foster human progress. If you agree, then we’d love to hear from you. Job Description Product design at Taylor & Francis is a creative and strategic discipline that shapes our platforms and user experiences. As a Product Designer reporting to the Head of Product Design, you'll own end-to-end design from problem discovery to production-ready solutions, creating meaningful experiences for the people who use our products. This role goes beyond traditional UX design. You'll bring product thinking to design and design thinking to product, understanding both why and how something should be built. You'll actively use research, data and direct customer contact throughout your design process, while maintaining a high standard of interaction design and visual craft. As part of a growing design function, you'll also help shape how we approach design across Taylor & Francis, contributing to shared standards, collaborative practices and a culture of continuous improvement. Discovery & Problem Shaping You'll be an active participant in discovery, not simply a recipient of its outputs. You'll help define which problems are worth solving and shape how teams investigate them. Engage directly with customers and users, conducting your own qualitative research, exploring behavioural data and bringing a designer's perspective to understanding user needs. Partner with design and research team to plan research activities and translate findings into actionable design opportunities. Contribute to problem framing and opportunity definition alongside Product Managers, using journey maps, service blueprints and experience principles to make complex problems tangible. Identify the moments in user journeys that matter most and advocate for the design investment those moments deserve. Bring an informed design perspective to prioritisation, balancing user needs, business goals and technical considerations. Design Craft & Execution You'll bring strong interaction design expertise and attention to detail, creating experiences that are usable, accessible, consistent and thoughtfully designed. Lead the design process end-to-end, from early sketches and conceptual exploration through wireframes, interaction design, prototyping and high-fidelity production-ready designs. Explore multiple design directions for significant problems, using creative exploration and evidence to inform decisions rather than converging too quickly on a single solution. Design thoughtful interactions that consider feedback, states, transitions, error handling, accessibility and edge cases. Build and test prototypes at the fidelity appropriate to the question, from quick sketches to detailed interactive prototypes. Work closely with Engineering and Product teams to understand technical constraints, business rules and the full range of scenarios designs need to support. Contribute to the development and continuous improvement of our design system, helping create consistent, accessible and reusable experiences across products. Research-Informed Design Strong design at Taylor & Francis is grounded in genuine user understanding. You'll be an active contributor to research, not just a consumer of its findings. Plan and conduct lightweight research activities, including usability testing, concept evaluation and exploratory interviews, as a natural part of your design process. Collaborate with UX Researchers on more complex studies, contributing to research questions, synthesis and the translation of findings into design decisions. Combine qualitative research, behavioural analytics and customer intelligence to inform and evaluate design decisions. Identify assumptions and uncertainties early, determining what needs to be tested before committing to solutions. Maintain an understanding of user behaviours and needs through regular engagement with research, data and direct customer contact. Cross-Functional Partnership The best experiences at Taylor & Francis come from close collaboration across Design, Product, Engineering, Research and Data. Work with Engineering from early in the design process, involving technical colleagues in problem exploration and solution development. Partner with Product Managers to shape what gets built, not just how it looks, contributing to roadmap discussions, trade-offs and definitions of success. Collaborate with Data and Customer Intelligence teams to understand behavioural patterns and how data-driven features can be expressed through useful, understandable experiences. Work with Business Analysts and Engineering to ensure requirements and acceptance criteria reflect the intended user experience. Communicate design decisions clearly, presenting the rationale, evidence and trade-offs to colleagues and senior stakeholders. Building Our Design Practice As part of a growing design function, you'll help establish how design operates across Taylor & Francis. Contribute to shared design principles, standards and ways of working that support consistent, high-quality experiences. Share your expertise through constructive critique, mentoring and collaborative problem-solving, while developing capabilities beyond your core discipline. Advocate for the value of design and research, helping teams understand how evidence-led design contributes to better product and business outcomes. Qualifications Strong experience in product design or UX design, with a portfolio demonstrating end-to-end ownership of complex digital product experiences. A portfolio that demonstrates both design thinking and craft, showing how you approached problems, explored alternatives and arrived at solutions. Strong interaction and visual design skills, with attention to usability, accessibility, consistency and detail. Genuine product instinct, with the confidence to contribute to problem definition, prioritisation and strategic product discussions. Practical experience conducting user research and translating findings into design decisions. Proficiency in Figma and experience contributing to or maintaining design systems. Experience working collaboratively in multidisciplinary product teams, particularly alongside Product Managers and Engineers. Comfort interpreting behavioural analytics and customer data to inform design decisions. Strong communication and facilitation skills, including the ability to explain and defend design decisions constructively. An interest in helping establish and improve design practices within a growing team. Additional Information At Taylor & Francis we care about our colleagues, promoting work-life balance, wellbeing, and flexible working. You will be joining a thriving business, working alongside an exceptional group of people. We believe that the skills and experience you bring to