Freelance UX Designer (Cape Town based)

Company Overview

Smart Operator is an AI-powered Operator Performance System (OPS) — a new category of enterprise software designed to transform frontline operations.

By combining voice interaction, camera vision, and AI, Smart Operator helps teams access operational knowledge, receive real-time guidance, and continuously improve performance.

Our mission is to make every operator more capable, every process more consistent, and every organisation more intelligent.

Built by a team with deep expertise in operations, learning, and technology, Smart Operator is redefining how companies capture, scale, and execute operational excellence.

Role Description

We are looking for a freelance UX Designer to help simplify and elevate the user experience across the Smart Operator platform.

You will work closely with our internal UX gatekeeper (QA Lead), product, and engineering teams to:

• Turn complex, noisy interfaces into clear, intuitive flows
• Clarify calls to action and user journeys (e.g. learning, practice, certification, SOPs)
• Ensure that core elements like System Guide / System Ops / System Advisor are consistently and sensibly presented across the app

This role is ideal for a designer who is strong on information architecture, interaction design, and usability, and who is comfortable working inside an existing design and product framework (rather than doing a full rebrand or visual overhaul).

Key Responsibilities

1. Review & Prioritise UX Issues

   • Review existing Smart Operator screens and flows (e.g. upload knowledge, learning vs practice vs certification pages, SOP/ingestion flows), PER PAGE/SECTION.
   • Identify:
     • Noise and clutter (too many elements, unclear hierarchy)
     • Missing or weak calls to action (e.g. “What do I do next?” is not obvious)
     • Conceptual confusion (e.g. difference between learning, practice, certification, journeys)
   • Work with QA Lead and the product team to prioritise which pages/flows to tackle first based on impact and importance.

2. UX Design & Flow Simplification

   • Propose clear, simplified layouts and flows, including:
     • Reducing unnecessary elements and steps
     • Making primary actions obvious and visually distinct
     • Clarifying navigation and “what happens next”
   • Create:
     • Wireframes (low and mid fidelity)
     • User flows and interaction patterns
     • Clear before/after views that illustrate the improvement (so engineering can implement confidently).
   • Ensure your designs are consistent with:
     • Existing design language and component patterns
     • The mental model of our users (operators, managers, L&D, etc.)

3. Systematic, Page-by-Page Improvements

   • Work in a systematic, modular way, page by page or flow by flow (rather than trying to “fix the whole app” at once).
   • For each selected page/flow:
     • Clarify the primary goal of the page (e.g. upload knowledge, start learning, manage SOPs).
     • Propose simplified information architecture and layout.
     • Highlight key decisions the user needs to make, and how to support them.
   • Produce “treatment documents” or clearly documented UX change sets (screens + rationale) that can be handed to engineering for implementation.

4. Collaboration & Handover

   • Work closely with QA Lead (UX gatekeeper), who:
     • Filters, negotiates and aligns UX changes with product and engineering
     • Feeds your designs into the normal delivery pipeline (e.g. Linear)
   • Participate in short feedback sessions with product/engineering to:
     • Walk through your designs
     • Answer questions about edge cases and interactions
   • Prepare specs and annotations that make implementation straightforward:
     • States (hover, active, error, empty)
     • Responsive or adaptive behaviours where relevant
     • Interaction details (click targets, transitions, etc.)

Skills & Behaviours

• 3+ years of experience as a UX or Product Designer (freelance or in-house), working on web applications or SaaS products.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating:
  • Simplification of complex interfaces
  • Effective information architecture and navigation
  • Clear call-to-action design and user journeys
• Proficiency in modern design tools (e.g. Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD), with preference for Figma.
• Experience designing for:
  • Multi-step workflows
  • Dashboards or multi-panel layouts
  • Content-heavy or configuration-heavy interfaces
• Strong understanding of UX principles:
  • Hierarchy, visual clarity, progressive disclosure
  • Onboarding flows and guidance patterns
  • Usability heuristics & accessibility basics
• Working on Notion and GSuite
• Clear, confident communicator
• Self-directed and proactive in ambiguous environments
• Comfortable balancing big-picture narrative with detailed execution
• Ability to do light UI polish beyond UX (icons, micro-illustrations, basic visual refinement) within an existing brand system.

Working Style & Expectations

• Comfortable working remotely and asynchronously, with clear written communication.
• Able to work from structured briefs provided by the team, and also proactively surface UX issues you identify.
• Willing to:
  • Iterate quickly based on feedback
  • Explain your design rationale clearly and concisely (although we do not need to know the history around each decision)
  • Produce production-ready UX artefacts that engineers can implement with minimal back-and-forth.
• Available for a consistent cadence of work over an agreed period (e.g. a fixed number of days/hours per week for a 1–3 month initial engagement), with the possibility to extend based on fit and impact.

Deliverables

Over the course of the engagement, typical deliverables may include:

• Prioritised UX issues list (by page/flow)
• Wireframes and user flows for key pages (e.g. learning/practice/certification, upload knowledge, SOP/ingestion flows)
• “Before vs after” layouts with clear rationales
• A lightweight UX treatment guide documenting patterns that can be reused across the app (e.g. how system guide/advisor/ops appear, how primary CTAs look/behave, how we handle noisy content)

Compensation

• We offer a day rate in ZAR.