UX Design Lead – Consultant

Who We Are

Girl Effect is an international non-profit that builds media that girls want, trust and need. From chatbots to chat shows and TV dramas to tech, our content helps adolescent girls in Africa, and Asia make choices and changes in their lives. We create safe spaces for girls, sharing facts and answering questions about health, nutrition, education, and relationships, empowering girls with the skills to negotiate and redefine what they are told is possible “for a girl”.

Our reach is 50 million and counting. And we’re using technology to reach girls at scale so every girl can choose to be in control of her body, her health, her learning and her livelihood.

Because when a girl unlocks her power to make different choices that change her life, it inspires others to do so too. She starts a ripple effect that impacts her family, community, and country.

That’s the Girl Effect.

Background

Girl Effect uses a branded media approach towards delivering behavioural change messaging.

We reach girls across the world, where they are -online and offline, to support them at the critical moments in life when choices around their health, education and economic future need to be made.

We use our expertise in behaviour change science to motivate and equip girls with information and support to help them see a different future for themselves, act on those choices, and drive greater demand for the opportunities and services available to them.

Chhaa Jaa in India, Tujibebe in Tanzania, and Yegna in Ethiopia – are some of our youth brands. They exist across multiple channels – digital ( Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok, Whatsapp), TV, radio, print and offline. Together, these brands reach 50m peoplein 20 countries in Africa and Asia.

Girl Effect reaches girls where they are via multiple media programs

Girl Effect operates multiple media programs, including TV shows, radio dramas, magazines, IVRS lines, digital and social media content, and a global chatbot. Our target audience, adolescent girls and young women worldwide, are now using digital products and social media like never before. Access is managed through a mix of lo-fi and hi-fi devices ranging from feature phones, smartphones, and tablets to laptops. To ensure that our programmes reach girls effectively and efficiently in this complicated maze of media consumption, we focus on reaching them where they already are.

The Scope

Due to periods of heightened demand for Experience Design expertise, we are looking for a Senior Service Designer who will serve, on an ad hoc basis, as support and additional capacity in the Experience Design practice at Girl Effect over the next two years. You will be a creative individual that we have vetted and can call upon when relevant and aligned projects/capacity arise at Girl Effect in such a manner that necessitates support to fulfil the increased demand.

You will be designing and prototyping analogue and increasingly digital experiences with human centered insights and needs at their core. You’ll be inspired by how technology can unlock new possibilities and choices for girls and imagine new uses for technology to address access, literacy, security, and other barriers. Ultimately, you’ll create innovative new experiences that inspire and equip girls to navigate adolescence and make life changing choices.

This is a role that will require you to work remotely with teams in multiple countries in Africa and

Asia and will be based either in our Mumbai or Nairobi offices.

Girl Effect’s creative team is a small and nimble group of experts that provide support and direction

to partners, contractors and freelancers across the globe so experience managing rapidly

expanding and contracting teams would be an enormous asset.

What You’ll Do

• Inspire great design (and get your hands dirty)
• Champion experience design excellence within teams
• Set the creative and strategic direction across various design challenges: interaction, product, and service design.
• Work with design researchers in low-income communities across Asia and Africa. Move quickly into prototyping solutions at various levels of fidelity.
• Instil confidence in the design process internally.
• Work with data to optimize and enhance products.
• Support teams based in our markets with the confidence and discipline to explore innovative design solutions.
• Support local teams to infuse their passions into projects and learn new skills.
• Be collaborative and contribute to healthy team motivation and morale.

What We Value

• Alignment with our mission and a commitment to empowering adolescent girls
• An understanding of and (ideally lived) experience in the countries we work in
• Empathy, curiosity and excellent communication skills
• The ability to really listen to our needs and drive to strive for the best solutions
• A supportive mindset to help our teams and partners develop their skills and knowledge
• Openness and honesty about where we could improve
• Self-starting partners who can manage their workload

Who You Are

Skills, expertise and requirements:

• This role will require you to work remotely with teams in multiple countries in Africa and Asia and will be based either in our Mumbai or Nairobi offices.
• You must be fluent in a vernacular language for the country you are applying in/from and English.
• Experience in health-related content/Behavior change content production in the field of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Economic Empowerment would be a massive bonus.
• 8+ years of professional experience in a design consultancy or equivalent position leading multidisciplinary teams
• Fluency in the human-centered design process from qualitative research and synthesis to ideation, prototyping, and implementation.
• Service Design, UX, UI
• You are solution-focused and medium-agnostic, willing to step out of your core skill set or discipline to find the correct solution to a design challenge.
• You have cultural sensitivity, creativity, and resourcefulness—comfortable finding your way through.
• You deliver precise and effective written and verbal communication to convey ideas, instructions, and feedback to team members, girls and young women.
• Highly Desirable
  • Experience in Conversational Interfaces such as Chatbots
  • Basic Understanding/development of Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning
  • Cross-cultural design experience and/or working in design for ICT4D
  • Experience working in emerging markets.
  • Experience collaborating with in-house and third-party developers in agile sprints, stewarding the transfer of design to development.
  • Familiarity with tools such as Google Suite, Asana and Slack is an added bonus.

Attitudes we are looking for:

• Comfortable with complex organizational structures and multiple stakeholders
• Comfortable with shared decision making
• A ‘do-er thinker’
• Enthusiastic about talking to and interacting with people across cultures and geographies – this role will require extensive conversations, presentations, documentation and fire-fighting
• Highly empathetic and context-sensitive – able to balance conflicting needs and priorities decisively
• Mission-driven and cares about making a difference in the lives of young people and vulnerable sections of society.

Expected Commitment

• The assignment is on a need-basis, can be part-time or full-time, or chargeable on the number of hours worked.

Reporting

This consultant will be managed by Girl Effect’s Global Creative Strategy Lead, supported by the wider Create team – particularly the global Experience Design Lead.

Proposal Submission

Interested consultants are asked to submit the following to support their candidature (Max 5 pages):

• Your understanding of the brief and why you feel you are well-placed to advise us on this
• Credentials – Please showcase any previous work that you consider relevant to what we are trying to achieve and how we approach our work, and the audience we cater to. Describe the qualifications, experience, and capabilities of the firm or consultant in providing the requested services.
• A light touch review of any one of our 2 products – Big Sis or Bol Behen
• Breakdown of Costs with applicable taxes and other charges in USD clearly identified. Consultants should provide their daily or hourly billing rate or their proposed fixed fee for the requested deliverables.
  • All applicable taxes should be quoted separately;
• **Reference-**Provide at least three references for similar contracts with a description of the service provided, the value of the contract, and the contract periods of performance.

In their technical proposal, the bidder must demonstrate an understanding of the requirements described in the RFP and demonstrate how the bidder will meet the requirements of the evaluation criteria.

GE (and its associated entities) is not liable for any cost incurred during the award/contract preparation, submission, or negotiation of the award/contract. All submitted documentation and/or materials shall become and remain the property of GE.

VALIDITY of the proposal shall be for 90 days from the date of bid closure.

Evaluation Criteria

The criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are listed below:

Technical Evaluation

• Relevant experience as demonstrated by CV/Profile – 20%
• Technical UX deliverable execution experience-10%
• Demonstrated experience working with chatbots – 25%
• Demonstrated experience working with young people in India/South Africa – 5%
• Client testimonials (At least 3 references) – 10%

Financial Evaluation

• Value for money/proposed budget breakdown – 30%

Tax

Applicants are advised to ensure that they clearly understand their tax position with regard to provisions of their local jurisdiction legislation when developing their proposals.

Disclaimer

GE reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, the number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party. GE shall inform ONLY successful applicant(s). The process of negotiation and signing of the contract with the successful applicant(s) will follow.

Safeguarding

You may be required to undertake safeguarding checks. Shortlisted consultants will be assessed on our organisational values at the interview stage, and the successful consultant will be expected to adhere to our safeguarding policy. We encourage you to read and understand our safeguarding policy, the executive summary of which can be found here. We have zero-tolerance for all forms of violence against children, beneficiaries and staff.

Equal Opportunities

Girl Effect Services is committed to equal opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

We are committed to building an organization that is increasingly representative of and works extensively with the communities that we serve. To this end, due regard will be paid to procuring consultancy service organizations and individuals with diverse professional, academic and cultural backgrounds.