About MDPI

A pioneer in scholarly, open access publishing, MDPI has supported academic communities since 1996. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, MDPI has the mission to foster open scientific exchange in all forms, across all disciplines.

We operate currently over 400 diverse, peer-reviewed, open-access journals supported by over 66,000 academic editors. We serve scholars from around the world to ensure the latest research is openly and broadly available.

Besides our main publishing business, we develop and maintain digital platforms and software ranging from scientific exchange platforms to article databases and search engines, all focused on empowering scholars and giving them the best possible product and service.

Position overview

This role will directly support the upcoming AI initiatives by designing intuitive interfaces, conducting user research to validate solutions, and collaborating with cross-functional teams across Basel and China. Strengthening our global UX capacity, this position is key to scale our digital ecosystem and deliver impactful experiences for our academic community.

Core Responsibilities

Design

• Design intuitive user interfaces, user flows, wireframes, and prototypes using Figma, ensuring consistency with our design system.
• Translate user needs and business requirements into elegant, accessible, and scalable UI solutions.
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to implement and refine user experiences.
• Contribute to the evolution and maintenance of our design system.

UX Research

• Plan and conduct user research activities, including usability testing, user interviews, and surveys.
• Analyse and synthesise research findings into actionable insights that inform both product strategy and design solutions.
• Support the definition and tracking of UX metrics (e.g., task success rate, satisfaction scores).
• Advocate for user-centered design, AI and accessibility best practices across teams.

Required

• 3-5 years of professional experience in UX design, with at least 1 year including UX research activities.
• A strong portfolio showcasing UX design work across complex digital platforms.
• Fluency in Figma and confidence applying and extending design systems.
• Experience working in cross-functional teams with product managers and developers.
• Familiarity with Agile development, Scrum, and tools like Jira (or willingness to learn).
• Strong understanding of accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG), usability heuristics, and responsive design.
• Strong teamwork and communication skills.
• Proven ability to work in an international, remote team environment.

Nice to have

• Experience managing or contributing significantly to a design system.
• Experience designing UX for AI-enabled products and tools.
• Familiarity with UX research platforms.
• Basic understanding of front-end development principles (HTML / CSS).

Initiatives

At MDPI, we develop and maintain various platforms in order to better serve the scientific community. Please find here-below a list of our main platforms: