User experience architect

Spark Trajectory Intranet and Digital Workplace Roles and Teams > This role

What does the role User experience architect do?

The User Experience Architect leads the design of the overall employee experience across the intranet and digital workplace, defining the interaction patterns, experience principles, and design frameworks that guide how employees navigate and use digital tools. The role typically works at a strategic and structural level rather than producing individual page designs, it is more about setting the UX approach, conducting research, and defining standards. The role often overlaps with information architecture and sits upstream of more execution-focused design roles.

Also known as

  • UX architect
  • UX designer
  • User experience designer
  • Digital experience designer
  • Interaction designer
  • Experience architect
  • Service designer
  • Product designer
Occasional prevalence

This role is sometimes found in larger organisations

Primary responsibilties

  • Leads the design of the overall employee experience across the intranet and digital workplace
  • Defines UX principles, interaction patterns, and design standards for the platform
  • Conducts user research to understand employee needs, behaviours, and pain points
  • Produces experience frameworks, journey maps, and wireframes to guide design decisions
  • Reviews and quality-assures design outputs from other team members or vendors
  • Advocates for user-centred design in product and platform decisions

Related teams

We've known this role to be part of the following teams:
Digital Workplace Team

Skills profile

Note: This is what we documented as an exemplar. It's unlikely to always be the case and relates to a role's involvement with the delivery of digital employee experience and perhaps not everything they do. You can open this in the Skills Profile Builder if you want to customise it.

Apprentice

Limited but increasing capabilities based on learning and on-the-job experience, but guidance and mentoring is required to fulfil potential.

Practitioner

Good professional capabilities sufficient for many circumstances and roles. Able to guide and mentor apprentices.

Master

Abilities that are the best in the professional field, gained from significant experience. Able to teach and guide others in their development.
{"intranet-and-digital-workplace-strategy":1,"measurement-and-improvement":1,"stakeholder-management":2,"search-management":1,"project-and-programme-management":1,"business-analysis-and-requirements-specification":2,"systems-development-configuration":1,"systems-testing":2,"information-security":1,"risk-management":1,"brand-management":3,"visual-design":3,"localisation":2,"information-architecture":2,"user-research":3,"interaction-design":3,"taxonomy-design-and-metadata-management":1,"user-testing":3,"accessibility":3,"content-design":1}

Outline job description

The User Experience Architect leads the design of the overall employee experience across the intranet and digital workplace; defining the interaction patterns, experience principles, and design frameworks that shape how employees navigate and use digital tools. This is a strategic and structural design role, working at the level of standards and direction rather than individual page designs.

About the role

You'll be setting the UX approach for the platform: conducting research, defining principles, and producing the frameworks (experience maps, interaction patterns, design standards etc.) that guide the decisions made by others. The role works closely with information architects and product teams and sits upstream of more execution-focused design work.

Most commonly found in the Digital Workplace Team, this role reflects a mature UX capability with cross-platform scope. In some organisations it may be a project-based or consultancy engagement rather than a permanent post.

What you'll actually be doing

A large part of the role is creating the conditions for good design decisions to happen: developing the frameworks, standards, and research insights that mean individual design choices are grounded in something coherent. That includes conducting user research directly, facilitating workshops with senior stakeholders, producing journey maps and wireframes, and reviewing design outputs from team members and vendors.

You'll also be advocating for user-centred design in product and platform decisions. This often means making the case for slowing down and testing assumptions before building.

What we're looking for

Substantial UX or service design experience in complex digital environments, with a portfolio showing strategic-level work including experience frameworks, research synthesis and design systems. Expert user research skills across both qualitative and quantitative methods. Accessibility and inclusive design knowledge is a baseline expectation.

The ability to influence without direct authority is central; you'll be setting standards for people who don't report to you, including external vendors.

Typical background

Most people in this role come from UX design, service design, or human-computer interaction backgrounds, often with a relevant degree or postgraduate qualification. Experience in enterprise software or digital workplace environments is preferred.

In addition, a UX Architect can find themselves influencing digital workplace, digital employee experience and intranet strategy, and working with senior stakeholders throughout the business.

Download this outline job description

Download this as Markdown (for Notion), RTF (for Word) or Plain Text (for nerds and primitives).

Errors? Disagreements? Omissions?

We have hopefully created these exemplars with thought and care. It is not the only way of looking at these roles and teams in the world, and relates specifically to the intranet and digital workplance profession. It therefore concentrates on some things and ignores others.

If you find an error, disagree wholeheartly or feel there is a glaring ommission we'd love to know.

contact us

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.