What are "experience design and research (XDR)" roles?
Great constituent experiences require 2 foundational capabilities:
- Experience research helps us learn about constituents' goals. It also helps us evaluate how well our services and products work for the people who use them.
- Experience design helps us create experiences that work for everyone. It's how we design solutions, interactions, information, and more.
The job descriptions on this page cover a range of roles focused on experience design and research. Each has been used in hiring processes that resulted in high quality candidates and hires.
Many of these roles are types of "experience designer"
Many of these roles focus on imagining and improving people's experiences. For example, service design, content design, and interaction design are all types of experience design. Some organizations have found it helpful to use "experience design" as the name of the role they're hiring. This may allow you to attract a broader range of candidates. This can benefit organizations that are hiring their first role and need someone with a broad skillset.
How to use these job descriptions
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Experience Design and Research (XDR) Lead
An XDR Lead helps your organization:
- Understand the constituents you serve (e.g. who they are, what their goals are, what their challenges are)
- Develop a roadmap for transforming people's experiences with your services
- Grow your research and design capabilities
An XDR Lead is often the first hire to make when you start building your capacity for constituent-centered work. They'll also need to be an outstanding strategic thinker: You need someone to help you promote change within your organization.
Candidates will likely have a background in one of the other roles listed here, such as research or service design. Look for someone who's a good fit for the projects they'll support first. For example, organizations that want to better understand who their constituents are might look for an XDR Lead with a research background.
Experience Researcher
Experience researchers help you understand the experiences of the people you serve. This understanding is critical for how we design and improve government services and products.
Researchers use a variety of methods to learn about constituents' behaviors, experiences, and attitudes. The kinds of research organizations typically do include:
- Exploratory research: Learn about what people need or want (e.g. observations, interviews)
- Evaluative research: Assess if something works and learn how to make it work better (e.g. usability testing)
- Generative research: Get input from people to inform design (e.g. participatory design exercises)
Researchers can be part of a team, providing continuous insights that guide development. Alternatively, some organizations have a central research team that supports multiple products and services.
Preview the lead researcher job description.
Similar titles
- User researcher
- UX researcher
Content Strategist
Content strategists create and manage information. They make sure constituents can use your websites, documents, and forms to accomplish their goals.
Content strategy roles generally focus on some combination of these:
- Content marketing: Explain what you offer, tell your story, and reach more people
- Content management: Organize huge amounts of information. Keep things up to date with your current policies and programs.
- Technical and UX Writing: Make complicated information simple for people to understand and use
Content strategists apply a variety of methods to accomplish these goals. They'll help you publish information that's in plain language and meets accessibility standards. They'll make sure your websites are optimized for search engines. And they'll help you coordinate information across your communications channels.
Preview the lead content strategist job description.
Similar titles
- Content designer
- Digital strategist
- Content manager
Service Designer
Service design is the practice of "orchestrating" services to help constituents achieve their goals. That is, service designers plan and organize all the parts of a service so they work together. Service designers:
- Map how services are delivered. This includes processes, people, and things that help you deliver it (both online and offline).
- Identify possible improvements
- Prototype solutions
Service design can be especially helpful if your services involve multiple touchpoints. For example, constituents may need to interact with multiple organizations, teams, or websites. Service Designers ensure that these components work together.
Service design may also be important if the timeline for your service is long. Service designers help you track constituents' whole experience.
You can embed a service designer with a product or service team to contribute to continuous improvement. You can also have a service designer who supports multiple teams across your organization.
Interaction Designer
Interaction design is about making people’s interactions with things feel intuitive. Interaction designers work on both digital and physical experiences. They design user interfaces and improve how people interact with them (e.g. websites, mobile apps). They also prototype and test experiences before you release them.
Interaction designers frequently work as part of product teams. They also help develop pattern libraries, or collections of reusable design elements. Pattern libraries make it faster and simpler to design applications. The Commonwealth Design System (formerly Mayflower) is an example of a component library.
Preview the lead interaction designer job description.
Similar titles
- UI/UX Designer
- Product Designer