Experience Designer (3 openings)

AARP; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) plan

Company pension plan

Health, dental and vision plans

Paid time off (PT0)

Job summary

AARP is seeking an Experience Designer (Advisor) to shape scalable design systems and journey frameworks across channels. You will focus on service, journey, and interaction design, guiding projects from discovery through delivery while ensuring accessibility and usability align with compliance guidelines.

With a human-centered approach, you will collaborate with product managers, researchers, marketers, and technologists to translate business goals into intuitive experiences that scale across

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human-Centered Design, UX, Interaction Design, Service Design, Graphic Design, Communications, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience in experience design, user experience (UX), service design, customer experience, digital product design, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience applying human-centered design methodologies to develop user flows, interaction models, experience frameworks, and scalable design solutions across digital and non-digital channels.
• Proven ability to translate business objectives, consumer needs, and journey requirements into intuitive, actionable, and measurable experience designs that support organizational goals.
• Experience creating and maintaining design systems, templates, standards, and reusable frameworks that drive consistency, scalability, and efficiency across multiple experiences and platforms.
• Strong collaboration skills with the ability to partner effectively with cross-functional teams, including journey owners, product managers, marketers, researchers, technologists, and business stakeholders throughout the design process.
• Experience incorporating accessibility, usability, compliance, and performance requirements into experience designs, ensuring solutions are inclusive, feasible, and sustainable over time.
• Demonstrated ability to use consumer feedback, testing results, analytics, and performance metrics to validate design decisions, optimize experiences, and support continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Partners cross functionally through all design phases, including client discovery, exploring and defining opportunities, creating actionable/tangible design concepts, and influences experience plans.
• Designs experience flows, logic, and transitions, translating experience intent into coherent, feasible, and scalable experience models.
• Contributes to the evolution and governance of experience frameworks, patterns, and templates to ensure consistency, scalability, and reuse across the enterprise.
• Ensures experience designs are testable, measurable, and operationalized by partnering using metrics to validate feasibility, accessibility, and performance over time.
• Partners with Journey Owners to align experience intent with desired outcomes and operational feasibility and supports the design of future‑state journeys by aligning experience flows to business priorities, constraints, and capabilities.
• Applies established experience principles, standards, and guardrails in the design of digital and non-digital experiences.

Skills

User experience design

Experience design methodologies

Design systems

Collaboration across teams

Accessibility & compliance

Performance measurement

Visual design

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Human-Centered Design, UX, Interaction Design, Service Design, Graphic Design, Communications, or related field

Job description

Overview

AARP is the nation's largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With a nationwide presence, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what matters most to the more than 100 million Americans 50-plus and their families: health and financial security, and personal fulfillment. AARP also works for individuals in the marketplace by sparking new solutions and allowing carefully chosen, high-quality products and services to carry the AARP name. As a trusted source for news and information, AARP produces the nation's largest-circulation publications,

Overview

AARP is the nation's largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With a nationwide presence, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what matters most to the more than 100 million Americans 50-plus and their families: health and financial security, and personal fulfillment. AARP also works for individuals in the marketplace by sparking new solutions and allowing carefully chosen, high-quality products and services to carry the AARP name. As a trusted source for news and information, AARP produces the nation's largest-circulation publications, AARP The Magazine and the AARP Bulletin. The Experience Designer (Advisor) defines and evolves scalable design systems, templates, and frameworks for shaping how experiences work across channels, touchpoints, and moments over time. Drawing on human-centered design and complementary experience approaches, this role informs how experiences are conceived, structured, and delivered across the broader experience ecosystem, focusing on service, journey, and interaction design rather than the technical design and development of digital products. Develops and produces a wide range of design materials to ensure all designs adhere to compliance guidelines while maintaining accessibility and usability.

Responsibilities

• Partners cross functionally through all design phases, including client discovery, exploring and defining opportunities, creating actionable/tangible design concepts, and influences experience plans.
• Designs experience flows, logic, and transitions, translating experience intent into coherent, feasible, and scalable experience models.
• Contributes to the evolution and governance of experience frameworks, patterns, and templates to ensure consistency, scalability, and reuse across the enterprise.
• Ensures experience designs are testable, measurable, and operationalized by partnering using metrics to validate feasibility, accessibility, and performance over time.
• Partners with Journey Owners to align experience intent with desired outcomes and operational feasibility and supports the design of future‑state journeys by aligning experience flows to business priorities, constraints, and capabilities.
• Applies established experience principles, standards, and guardrails in the design of digital and non-digital experiences.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human-Centered Design, User Experience (UX), Interaction Design, Service Design, Graphic Design, Communications, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience in experience design, user experience (UX), service design, customer experience, digital product design, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience applying human-centered design methodologies to develop user flows, interaction models, experience frameworks, and scalable design solutions across digital and non-digital channels.
• Proven ability to translate business objectives, consumer needs, and journey requirements into intuitive, actionable, and measurable experience designs that support organizational goals.
• Experience creating and maintaining design systems, templates, standards, and reusable frameworks that drive consistency, scalability, and efficiency across multiple experiences and platforms.
• Strong collaboration skills with the ability to partner effectively with cross-functional teams, including journey owners, product managers, marketers, researchers, technologists, and business stakeholders throughout the design process.
• Experience incorporating accessibility, usability, compliance, and performance requirements into experience designs, ensuring solutions are inclusive, feasible, and sustainable over time.
• Demonstrated ability to use consumer feedback, testing results, analytics, and performance metrics to validate design decisions, optimize experiences, and support continuous improvement.

AARP will not sponsor an employment visa for this position.

Additional Requirements

• Regular and reliable job attendance
• Effective verbal and written communication skills
• Exhibit respect and understanding of others to maintain professional relationships
• Independent judgement in evaluation options to make sound decisions
• In office/open office environment with the ability to work effectively surrounded by moderate noise

Hybrid Work Environment

AARP observes Mondays and Fridays as remote workdays, except for essential functions. Remote work can only be done within the United States and its territories.

Compensation And Benefits

AARP offers a competitive compensation and benefits package including a 401(k); 100% company-funded pension plan; health, dental, and vision plans; life insurance; paid time off to include company and individual holidays, vacation, sick, caregiving, and parental leave; performance-based and peer-based recognition and tuition reimbursement.

Equal Employment Opportunity

AARP is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring a diverse workforce and sustaining an inclusive culture. AARP does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, color, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, mental or physical disability, genetic information, veteran status, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law.