Content Designer & User Researcher

City and County of San Francisco; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 134,000 - 169,000; Full time

Job summary

The San Francisco Planning Department’s PermitSF team seeks a Content Designer & User Researcher for end-to-end design and improvement of PermitSF services. You will work across discovery, design, configuration, testing, launch, and ongoing improvements with customers, staff, and platform partners.

You will plan and conduct user research, translate findings into content and requirements, and collaborate on content standards, voice, and tone for public-facing services.

Qualifications

• Associate degree in business administration, public administration, information systems, economics, finance, computer science, UX/UI design or related field; 1 additional year of qualifying experience may substitute for the degree.
• Three years of experience in the information systems field including system analysis, business process design, development and implementation of business solutions, or IT project management.
• Desirable: experience designing content for complex digital services and applying UX writing to simplify complex requirements.
• Desirable: experience planning user research with varied audiences and applying findings to content, service and system configuration decisions.
• Desirable: experience creating journey maps, service blueprints, process maps, content models, prototypes, and user stories.

Responsibilities

• Plan and conduct user research with applicants, residents, businesses, permit staff, and other users at every stage of the service lifecycle.
• Synthesize research findings to identify user needs, pain points, workflow gaps, accessibility barriers, and opportunities for improvement.
• Create and maintain service blueprints, journey maps, process maps, content models, prototypes, and related artifacts.
• Design, write, edit, and govern clear, plain-language content for online forms, instructions, eligibility questions, notifications, and help text.
• Translate complex requirements into content, functional requirements, and user interaction recommendations.
• Advise on how workflow decisions affect applicant and staff experience.
• Translate research into prioritized recommendations, user stories, and feature requests.
• Facilitate content-design critiques and cross-functional reviews to reach implementable decisions.
• Plan soft launches and guided first-use sessions with selected customers; collect feedback.

Skills

UX writing

User research

Content design

Stakeholder communication

Workshop facilitation

Education

Associate degree or equivalent in relevant field

Job description

The San Francisco Planning Department (CPC) shapes how land is used to meet community needs and guide the city's future, working toward inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous neighborhoods. Its PermitSF initiative is a citywide permitting transformation program that partners across departments to simplify permitting, improve the customer experience, modernize business processes, and expand integrated online permitting services through the PermitSF Portal.

The role

This position sits within the PermitSF team and reports to the PermitSF Portal Program Director. It is a full-time Permanent Exempt (PEX) appointment, classified as 1053-IS Business Analyst-Senior, with a duration not to exceed 36 months. The Content Designer & User Researcher supports the end-to-end design and improvement of PermitSF services across the full implementation lifecycle, from discovery and future-state design through configuration, testing, launch, stabilization, and continuous improvement. The role collaborates with customers, permit staff, implementation and configuration teams, communications staff, policy and legal partners, subject-matter experts, and the PermitSF platform vendor.

What you would do

• Plan and conduct user research with applicants, residents, businesses, permit staff, and other users at every stage of the service lifecycle, selecting appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods such as interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing, surveys, and facilitated feedback sessions.
• Synthesize research findings to identify user needs, current-state pain points, workflow gaps, accessibility barriers, and opportunities for technology or business-process improvement.
• Create and maintain service blueprints, journey maps, process maps, content models, prototypes, and related artifacts that describe the end-to-end applicant and staff experience.
• Design, write, edit, and govern clear, plain-language content for online forms, instructions, eligibility questions, notifications, help text, confirmation messages, and other public-facing services.
• Analyze and translate complex legal, policy, technical, and operational requirements into content, functional requirements, and user interaction recommendations that users can understand and act on.
• Advise implementation and configuration leads on how workflow, form, naming, notification, and business-rule decisions will affect the applicant and staff experience.
• Translate research evidence and customer pain points into prioritized recommendations, acceptance criteria, user stories, and product feature requests for PermitSF leadership and the platform vendor.
• Facilitate content-design critiques, co-design sessions, workshops, and cross-functional reviews to resolve conflicting requirements and reach clear, implementable decisions.
• Plan and facilitate soft launches and guided first-use sessions with selected customers; collect real-time feedback and assess service readiness for broader release.
• Identify and document content defects, usability issues, bugs, and configuration problems found through research and launch activities, and coordinate resolution and retesting with the appropriate teams.
• Partner with communications and web-content teams on website updates, launch information, and customer communications, maintaining consistency with PermitSF content standards, voice, and tone.
• Analyze customer feedback, staff reports, support trends, analytics, and operational data to recommend and evaluate improvements to PermitSF systems, business processes, and active digital services.
• Communicate research findings, risks, trade-offs, and recommendations clearly to managers, frontline staff, technical teams, vendors, executives, and other stakeholders.

What they are looking for

Minimum qualifications:

• An associate degree (or equivalent 60 semester / 90 quarter credits, with at least 20 semester / 30 quarter credits in a relevant field) in business administration, public administration, information systems, economics, finance, computer science, UX/UI design, or a closely related field. One year of additional qualifying experience may substitute for the degree.
• Three years of experience in the information systems field, including system analysis, business process design, development and implementation of business application solutions, or IT project management.

Desirable qualifications:

• Experience designing content for complex digital services, forms, transactional workflows, or government services.
• Experience applying UX writing, editing, and information-architecture skills to simplify complex legal, policy, operational, and technical requirements while maintaining accuracy.
• Experience planning and conducting user research with varied audiences and applying findings to content, service, process, product, and system configuration decisions.
• Experience creating journey maps, service blueprints, process maps, content models, prototypes, research reports, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Experience applying digital accessibility standards and inclusive design practices to forms, content, and end-to-end service experiences.
• Experience facilitating workshops, co-design sessions, usability tests, and cross-functional reviews with technical, policy, legal, communications, operations, and subject-matter-expert teams.
• Ability to identify and analyze whether user-facing problems arise from content, processes, policies, system configuration, technology, training, or a combination of factors.
• Experience working in agile or iterative environments and collaborating with designers, analysts, developers, vendors, and operational teams through launch and continuous improvement.
• Experience with permitting, licensing, regulatory, civic technology, or other complex public services.

Working arrangements

The role is based at 49 S Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94103. It is a full-time, on-site position.

Pay and benefits

The annual compensation range is $134,082 - $168,688.