Who we are
ScanSoft is the leading provider of speech recognition solutions that are redefining the way the world communicates over the telephone, in the car, and with handheld devices. The Nuance (SPS) group provides cutting-edge, user-centered discovery, design, development, and optimization services to hundreds of brand-name customer service organizations. The applications we define and deploy are used by millions of average consumers every day, who use everyday spoken English to conduct their personal business with corporations, government institutions, hospitals, and schools.
When you join SPS, you'll be joining an interdisciplinary, results-oriented, client-focused consulting group that America's largest organizations trust to define their callers' experience. We are comprised of speech technology scientists, designers, cognitive scientists, project managers, business analysts, and systems architects. We deploy systems that deliberately “wow†callers by exceeding their expectations and flow so seamlessly that callers don't notice any significant difference from dealing with live agents. We discover, defend, and optimize the caller’s experience to maximize our client's technology investment. We do this while adhering to rigorous client schedules, frequently moving a project from conception through deployment in four months or less.
What you'll do
This assignment places you on-site at one of ScanSoft's largest clients, as part of a multidisciplinary team composed of SPS professionals, our client's executives, and our partners' engineers. As one of two Design Leaders assigned to this suite of consumer-facing applications, you will be creating the experience for hundreds of thousands of callers each day, by making this new medium comfortable and intuitive, while addressing client and caller expectations for a human-like dialog that are exacting and far-ranging, but which are often held subconsciously. You will discover user requirements, act as the end user's advocate, and work with your team to match these needs against client goals, as well as strengths and limitations of the technology. You will validate functionality, design callflow, script dialog, define grammars, and direct voice talent to exacting levels of detail in order to realize applications that “get the job done†with a minimum of fuss while nevertheless displaying flair and personality. As a Design Leader, you will be the authority on our client's calling population, understanding how they use current applications and what will keep them maximally satisfied as new ones are designed and rolled out. You will need to be comfortable with aggressive deadlines and with multitasking across the various roles of researcher, designer, scripter, specification engineer, and human factors expert. Your successes will be measured both by business targets you reach or surpass and the positive impression your designs leave in the minds of our client's callers.
While the majority of work will be on-site at the client's location, you will be expected to travel to the client's remote sites on occasion, as well as to SPS central offices in New York and/or Boston on a regular basis.
Responsibilities
- Discover and analyze applications requirements from both the client's and the caller's perspective
- Characterize, in detail, archetypes for callers and a persona for the system being built
- Create effective speech user interface designs including call flow, dialogs, and prompts to accomplish the requirements
- Assist in implementing these designs, including interacting with associate designers and developers, directing voice talents, and performing usability tests
- Analyze performance of the user interface in the field 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.
Who you are
You must supply the following credentials:
- 4+ years industry experience in user-centered design
- Experience in speech-controlled user interface design, telephony applications, and/or complex multimodal design.
- Experience working closely with outside clients and partners, as well as developers
- Native-level English fluency, both written and spoken
- BS or equivalent experience in human factors engineering, product interface design, cognitive science, experimental psychology, software design, or a similar degree
- Experience in usability testing
- Strong presentation skills
- Ability to travel within the U.S. and Canada up to five days per month
- Creativity and a sense of fun
- Be able to work with a minimum amount of direct supervision
- Strong Microsoft Windows skills, including MS Office
Strong candidates will also have the following:
- Experience with Natural Language speech user interface design
- Demonstrable audio engineering experience and flair
- Professional writing experience
- Experience working in a recording studio, as or with professional voice talent
- Programming skills in perl and/or VB
Please post your curriculum vitae to the link below or send it to [email protected]
For more information, visit www.nuance.com