Overview
The Head (Experience Design) is responsible for shaping and advancing the Gallery's end-to-end visitor experience through experiential design, space planning, visitor journey design, innovation, and research-led strategy. The role drives how visitors encounter, navigate, engage with, and reflect on art across physical and digital touchpoints, ensuring experiences are intuitive, inclusive, and emotionally resonant.
Working closely with internal stakeholders across Visitor Experience, Exhibitions, Curatorial, Digital & Technology, Facilities, Operations, and Marketing & Communications, the incumbent develops and delivers integrated experience frameworks, pilots, and projects aligned with the Gallery's strategic priorities. The role requires a balance of strategic vision, strong problem-framing capability, and hands-on design and research expertise, grounded in a clear understanding of museum operations and visitor needs.
Job Responsibilities
1. Experiential & Spatial Design
- Lead experiential design for the Gallery's public spaces, ensuring layouts, circulation, and spatial interactions support meaningful, intuitive art encounters.
- Guide space planning, wayfinding considerations, and visitor orientation strategies to enhance ease of movement, sense of arrival, and overall comfort.
- Develop cross-gallery experience design frameworks that integrate architecture, exhibitions, visitor services, and technology into cohesive, consistent experiences.
- Collaborate with Facilities and Operations teams to ensure experience intent is aligned with operational, safety, accessibility, and conservation requirements.
2. Seamless Visitor Journey Design & Improvement
- Design and optimise the end-to-end visitor journey across pre-visit, on-site, and post-visit stages.
- Identify friction points, service gaps, and opportunities to elevate clarity, accessibility, and delight across touchpoints.
- Apply service design methodologies (e.g. journey mapping, service blueprints, prototyping) to improve physical and digital interactions holistically.
- Establish feedback and iteration loops to support continuous improvement of the visitor experience.
3. Digital & Technology Touchpoints
- Partner digital, technology, and exhibition teams to conceptualise and shape digital touchpoints, including interactive installations, mobile experiences, and wayfinding systems.
- Translate visitor experience goals into clear requirements for digital and assisted-service solutions, ensuring strong usability and accessibility standards.
- Assess emerging technologies and propose experience innovations that enhance engagement with art and reduce visitor or operational friction.
- Ensure all digital experiences align with the Gallery's brand, tone, and inclusivity principles.
4. Innovation & Thought Leadership
- Serve as a thought leader in cultural and experience design, introducing new perspectives on how audiences engage with art in contemporary society.
- Challenge conventional museum norms and reframe complex experience challenges into clear, elegant, visitor-centred solutions.
- Contribute to the development of experience design standards, principles, and playbooks that embed experience thinking into organisational workflows.
5. Strategic Roadmap & Experience Planning
- Develop and maintain a multi-year Visitor Experience Roadmap aligned with organisational strategy, upcoming exhibitions, and visitor development priorities.
- Provide strategic input to senior leadership on future experience opportunities, trade-offs, and cross-division integration.
- Define experience success metrics and evaluation approaches to link design intent with measurable outcomes.
6. Business Process Understanding & Problem Definition
- Build strong understanding of the Gallery's core operational processes, including ticketing, front-of-house operations, exhibitions, programmes, and membership.
- Translate ambiguous or complex visitor experience issues into clear problem statements, design hypotheses, and prioritised opportunity areas.
- Ensure experience recommendations are grounded in operational feasibility, resource considerations, and long-term sustainability.
7. Visitor Research & Participatory Design
- Lead qualitative and quantitative visitor research, including observation studies, interviews, focus group discussions, surveys, and usability testing.
- Apply participatory and iterative design approaches to co-create solutions with visitors, frontline staff, and internal stakeholders.
- Synthesise insights into actionable design principles, experience guidelines, and decision-ready recommendations.
8. Experimentation, Proofs-of-Concept & Business Cases
- Design and run proofs-of-concept and pilot initiatives to test new experience ideas for desirability, feasibility, and viability.
- Work cross-functionally to implement pilots, evaluate outcomes, and iterate before scaling.
- Develop business cases outlining benefits, costs, risks, dependencies, and success metrics to support management decision-making.
9. Project & Stakeholder Management
- Lead experience-related projects from discovery through implementation and post-launch review, ensuring quality, timelines, and strategic alignment.
- Work closely with internal teams, external partners, consultants, and vendors to deliver integrated experience solutions.
- Facilitate alignment across stakeholders and manage competing priorities through clear communication and governance.
Job Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in relevant subject or the equivalent combination of education and experience. MBA would be an advantage.
- Experience in business consulting, researching and co-creating experiences that resonate emotionally with people, with qualitative and quantitative data to support decision-making, and/or service quality in lifestyle, attractions or arts & culture industries would be ideal.
- A team player who is resourceful, hands-on, detail-oriented and able to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
- Excellent interpersonal and cross-team management skills, project management and prioritization skills with attention to detail.
- Strong expertise in visitor journey mapping, service design, experiential and spatial planning, and concept development.
- Strong analytical skills and demonstrated understanding and experience in digital touchpoint engagement development.
- Familiarity with design tools, frameworks, and methods used to articulate experience concepts and strategies.
