Interaction Designer

We are seeking an Interaction Designer to join our Tokyo Studio. For a successful applicant to join our team, we are looking for these 3 must have attributes:

• Radical Imagination

We identify and solve problems across a variety of industries with organisations large and small, established and new. An ability to imagine different products, services, experiences and worlds is at the centre of our work and the cutting edge we bring to everything we do. 

• Bias towards Tangibility

We build to explore. Tangibility helps us to transform insights into artefacts we then use to further our thinking with the help from our clients and users we co-design with. An ability to quickly bring designs to life is a core skill of an interaction designer - be it a future world, a smartphone application, an interactive hardware prototype, a VR app or a service experience.

• Telling Compelling Stories

Communicating our work in a compelling way is paramount to getting our audiences excited and act about the work we do together. An aptitude for concise and articulate communication contributes to our consulting excellence. This is presupposed by understanding the strategic value of design to business.

Relevant Experience and Skills

• 3–5 years of interaction design experience in a design studio or creative consultancy or an in-house design team in a reputable organisation.
• Bachelor’s and/or graduate degree in Interaction Design, New Media, HCI, or other relevant degree in design.
• Strong portfolio and elevated sense of design: you know the difference between “good” and “great” and are able to work through team dynamics, clients and timelines to deliver excellent design. We’re excited to see 3 projects that best illustrate your core capabilities and interests.
• Strong English written and verbal skills. Any knowledge of the Japanese language and/or willingness to learn is a plus.

Required Mindset

• Growth mindset: An ability to quickly learn and adopt new diverse tools depending on the type of the brief, team or the client.
• Systems thinking: You love complex questions and use your work to communicate that complexity in simple ways.
• Team skills: You work best in a participatory, team-based environment. You support and inspire teams through collaboration as well as direction, vision, and planning of deliverables.
• Communication: You have strong verbal and visual presentation skills, as well as an articulate point of view about design. You understand the value of design within a business context.
• Openness: Designers need to be flexible and open-minded. You are optimistic, generative, and open to new ideas and ways of working.
• Human-centred: You can articulate a human-centred approach to design and are comfortable going out into the world for inspiration. You understand basic human-centred design philosophy, embrace ambiguity, and want to continually evolve design methodologies. 
• Strong English written and verbal skills. Any knowledge of Japanese language and/or willingness to learn is a plus.

Why is this role important for IDEO’s work?

IDEO Tokyo’s mission is to help enable change in Japan through design and creativity. 

Our purpose is to partner with organisations to help them build resilient and inclusive futures they can own--we do this through a deep focus on empathy, optimism, and a rigorous approach to making strategy tangible by using creativity as a complement to analytical reasoning.

Some previous projects to check out:

• Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket with Jacquard by Google: When Google teamed up with Levi’s to craft a jacket with technology woven in, the company turned to IDEO to help make the experience of wearing the garment feel seamless, intuitive, and familiar.
• Future of Automobility: An online visualisation of how life with driverless cars might really look and feel. It considers four scenarios: “Moving People,” which looks at how commutes will change when we can look away from the road; “Moving Things,” where we examine automated package-delivery fleets; “Moving Spaces,” where we envision mobile offices meeting people where they live and parking in underused areas of our cities; and “Moving Together,” which explores how the interior of future vehicles will be customised to meet our personal needs during ride-sharing.
• Revitalizing Prefectural Food Industries with NJC’s Fudoloop: Fudoloop is an app that enables farmers and wholesalers to conduct business more profitably by bringing transparency to the fluctuating produce market. Wholesalers can receive information from farmers a day in advance, and can coordinate the various requests of buyers, such as order size, production location and other special requests.
• Designing a New App Experience with JR East: When planning to update their existing JR East service’s app, they considered what would make for a more user centred experience and teamed up with IDEO to help keep people at the forefront of how they design and maintain their app experience
• Designing a Better Onboarding Experience for the AI Symptom Checker, Ubie: Ubie approached D4V—who partners with IDEO—to help rethink the onboarding experience and quickly facilitate the introduction of AI Monshin Ubie in regional clinics across Japan.

Commitment to Diversity:

At IDEO, we are committed to the work of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion within our organisation and in the world. Our purpose of having disproportionate, world-changing impact through design is directly connected to our ability to bring many different perspectives to the table. This applies to our candidates, the people we hire, the clients and customers we serve, and the communities we learn from in our research.

As a human-centred organisation, we are committed to working with and designing for people of every race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, physical ability or attribute, religion, national origin, or political belief. We recognise that this commitment requires ongoing work and sustained attention, as well as adaptation to new insights and best practices.

Read our most recently updated Commitments to further Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion here.

Pop quiz:

Send us a sample* of something that’s good, and send us a sample of something that’s great.
*Not something you created, and no explanation needed.

Application Instructions:

Please apply online by uploading your 1) resume, 2) cover letter, 3) a link to your portfolio, and 4) your response to the above Pop Quiz. In particular, we want to hear about the design process and your role and contribution for each project submitted.

IDEO Tokyo is committed to cultivating creative confidence in Japan and we’re curious to learn if you share the same aspirations. Please elaborate on this in your application.