Lead User Interface User Experience Designer

Job Title: Lead User Interface / User Experience (UI/UX) Designer

• Location: Canberra, ACT (Hybrid – Minimum 3 days in office per week)
• Estimated Start Date:24 November 2025
• Security Clearance: Must already have Baseline Clearance
• Hours:Up to 37.5 hours per week (standard hours between 8am–6pm)

This role is a full-time opportunity to join the Local Peoples team permanently, with your first project supporting the Department of Health and Aged Care's Human-Centred Design (HCD) team. Local Peoples is a preferred partner for the Australian Federal Government's Department of Health and Aged Care's Human Centred Design (HCD) Centre of Excellence (CoE). Beyond this project, you would be contributing to impactful co-design projects that improve services, policies, and products for communities across Australia.

About the first project:

The Department of Finance is seeking a Lead User Interface / User Experience Designer to drive the redesign of the Parliamentary Document Management System (PDMS) — a Whole-of-Government platform used by over 93 government entities and 30,000+ users, including Ministers and their offices.

This position will play a critical leadership role in designing a modern, scalable, and responsive interface that enhances usability, accessibility, and engagement across a diverse user base. The Lead UI/UX Designer will guide research, design, and delivery activities to ensure the PDMS user experience aligns with government accessibility standards and the needs of both high-volume and occasional users.

Responsibilities:

User Research & Insights

• Conduct user research through interviews, surveys, workshops, and usability testing to identify user needs, behaviours, and pain points.

• Analyse feedback and data to inform iterative improvements and validate design decisions.

Design Artefacts & Prototyping

• Create and maintain design deliverables, including wireframes, mock-ups, prototypes, and user flows.

• Develop and oversee a consistent design system aligned with government and accessibility standards.
  
  

Accessibility & Compliance

• Ensure all designs meet WCAG and Australian Government accessibility requirements.

• Resolve accessibility issues and champion inclusive design principles.
  
  

Interface Design & Development

• Design intuitive, responsive user interfaces for both web and mobile platforms.

• Provide detailed UI specifications, interaction patterns, and visual design assets for development teams.
  
  

Usability Testing

• Conduct usability and beta testing to evaluate design performance against objectives.

• Refine and optimise designs based on user feedback and analytics.
  
  

Agile Collaboration & Leadership

• Work closely with product managers, business analysts, developers, and stakeholders in an agile environment.

• Lead co-design sessions, sprint reviews, and workshops to align user experience with business goals.

• Mentor junior designers and contribute to design capability uplift across the team.
  
  

Documentation & Communication

• Develop user journey maps, design rationale, and accessibility reports.

• Contribute to training materials and documentation to support design consistency and knowledge sharing.
  
  

Key Requirements

• 5+ years' experience in UI/UX design with demonstrated experience leading complex, user-centred design projects.

• Proven track record in designing and delivering responsive web applications with a strong focus on accessibility.

• Experience conducting user research, usability testing, and data-driven design iteration.

• Proficiency in design tools such as Figma, Adobe XD, or equivalent.

• Strong understanding of WCAG and government digital service standards.

• Experience working in agile delivery environments.

• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
  
  

Highly Desirable

• Experience designing for Whole-of-Government or large enterprise systems.

• Understanding of content management and document workflow systems.

• Experience mentoring other designers and contributing to organisational design standards or systems.

Who are Local Peoples?

Local Peoples is a strategic research and design studio based in Melbourne and Canberra.

Our mission is to design healthy, resilient and resourceful communities. We are proud to be a certified B-Corporation with a strong focus on our social, environmental and economic impact.

We work across brand and digital design, place and experience design,, content and community engagement. Our key partners include state and local government, social enterprises, universities and large commercial organisations. All are experiencing complex challenges right now and we believe that design research, thinking and delivery can help to solve these challenges and make positive change for people and the planet.

We produce , a publication and community of 100K+, which focuses on design-led social innovation and impact.

Why join Local Peoples?

• Representative and inclusive - we are dedicated to building an inclusive and accessible workplace for people from diverse backgrounds

• Impact driven - work towards achieving real impact for people and the environment

• Fantastic culture - driven by a welcoming, supportive and collaborative team environment

• Professional support for design excellence- benefit from being a part of one of Australia's fastest growing design and delivery communities

• Flexible working arrangements - including the ability to work remotely

• Market rate salaries - attractive remuneration packages in line with the market rate

• Flexible employment types - including the preference for permanent, but will consider contracting

Local Peoples proudly supports the LGBTQ+ community, neurodiverse individuals, and First Nations people. We are committed to creating inclusive spaces where everyone, regardless of their identity, feels valued and respected. Together, we strive for equality and a positive future for all.

Local Peoples works, creates, and plays on the lands of the Wurundjeri, Bunurong, and Wathaurong peoples of the Kulin Nation, land which has never been ceded. We thank them for caring for this land for over 40,000 years and recognize and pay our deepest respect to Elders past, present, and emerging. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land

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