Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Usability Research Coordinator

🎯 Role Definition

The Usability Research Coordinator is responsible for the operational delivery of UX and usability research programs. This role coordinates participant recruitment and scheduling, manages research tools and repositories, facilitates moderated and unmoderated usability tests, collects and prepares qualitative and quantitative data, and supports researchers and product teams to translate findings into actionable product recommendations. The ideal candidate balances strong project and stakeholder management with hands-on research execution and rigorous attention to participant experience, data integrity, and accessibility.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Research Assistant or Research Operations Assistant
UX Coordinator or Product Coordinator
Customer Insights / Market Research Coordinator

Advancement To:

UX Researcher / Usability Researcher
Senior UX Researcher or Research Operations Manager
Product Research Manager or Director of UX Research

Lateral Moves:

Product Analyst
UX Designer (research-heavy roles)
Customer Experience Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Plan, schedule, and coordinate end-to-end usability research sessions (moderated and unmoderated) across mobile, web, and native applications, ensuring logistics are managed and sessions run on time.
Recruit, screen, and manage participant panels using recruitment criteria and quotas; maintain participant pipelines and compliance with incentives and privacy policies.
Design and maintain study documentation including research plans, screener surveys, consent forms, discussion guides, and post-test surveys in consultation with senior researchers.
Facilitate moderated usability tests and interviews when required, following best practices for task scripting, probe techniques, and ethical participant treatment.
Administer unmoderated remote studies using platforms such as UserTesting, Lookback, or Optimal Workshop and configure study tasks, timing, and capture settings to maximize data quality.
Operate and maintain research tools and repositories (e.g., Dovetail, Airtable, Notion, Google Workspace), maintaining tagging taxonomies, transcripts, and secure access for stakeholders.
Capture and transcribe qualitative sessions, perform initial coding and thematic summaries, and prepare highlight reels or clips for rapid stakeholder consumption.
Clean, validate, and prepare quantitative usability metrics (e.g., task success rates, time on task, SUS) and integrate with analytics or product telemetry where applicable.
Run recruitment campaigns across panels, social channels, CRM lists, and vendors; manage vendor contracts, scheduling, and recruitment budgets.
Administer participant incentives, verify disbursement, and maintain accurate records for finance and compliance audits.
Execute pilot tests and QA sessions to validate study flows, prototypes, and technical recording configurations before live sessions.
Create clear, concise research artifacts (affinity diagrams, journey maps, usability findings decks, executive summaries) and distribute findings to cross-functional teams.
Maintain participant privacy and data security practices—anonymize transcripts, ensure consented data retention, and comply with GDPR/CCPA where relevant.
Coordinate cross-functional logistics for live observation sessions and research showcases, including scheduling, room setup, remote viewing links, and note-taking.
Support mixed-methods analysis by merging qualitative insights with product analytics, A/B test results, and quantitative survey data to inform recommendations.
Track research intake and backlog, prioritize study requests with product and design leads, and ensure SLAs for study turnaround times.
Train and onboard new researchers, stakeholders, and note-takers on research processes, tooling, and templates to scale research capacity.
Troubleshoot technical issues during remote sessions (audio/video recording, screen sharing, prototype access) and liaise with IT or platform support.
Maintain accessibility testing checklists and recruit participants with a range of abilities to ensure inclusivity in usability testing.
Monitor and report research operations KPIs (recruitment velocity, show rate, cost per participant, time-to-insight) and recommend process improvements.
Support rapid guerrilla testing and in-person intercepts when fast feedback is required, including consent, note capture, and synthesis.
Develop and maintain an internal research repository and insights library to reduce duplicate studies and surface historical learnings for product teams.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis for research datasets and usability metrics to enable rapid stakeholder questions.
Contribute to continuous improvement of research operations, tooling procurement, and standard operating procedures.
Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, data analysts, and engineers to translate research needs into executable studies and measurable outcomes.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when research work intersects with product delivery timelines.
Manage vendor relationships for remote testing panels, transcription services, and research platforms; evaluate and recommend new tools.
Assist in generating ROI reports for research investments and case studies that demonstrate business impact.
Provide light quantitative support: create and distribute surveys (Qualtrics, Typeform), perform basic statistical summaries, and visualize results for stakeholders.
Help maintain institutional knowledge by curating research highlights, case studies, and onboarding materials for cross-functional teams.
Lead or support compliance reviews for research involving sensitive populations, minors, or health-related products.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Practical experience designing and executing usability tests (moderated and unmoderated) across web and mobile platforms.
Participant recruitment & screening: building screeners, managing quotas, and running recruitment pipelines with panels and vendors.
Proficiency with research and ops tools: Dovetail, UserTesting, Lookback, Optimal Workshop, UserZoom, or similar platforms.
Transcription and qualitative coding skills; ability to produce rapid thematic summaries and affinity mappings.
Basic quantitative skills: calculating task success, time-on-task, basic descriptive statistics, and interpreting SUS or NPS scores.
Familiarity with survey design and distribution tools such as Qualtrics, Typeform, Google Forms.
Experience maintaining research repositories and tagging taxonomies in Airtable, Notion, or a centralized insights platform.
Video/audio recording and editing for highlight reels (basic use of tools like Loom, Zoom, Kapwing, or Adobe Premiere Rush).
Accessibility testing awareness and experience recruiting participants with diverse abilities.
Strong competency with remote testing setup, troubleshooting microphones, cameras, screen sharing, and prototype access.
Basic knowledge of user-centered design principles, UX metrics, and product development lifecycles.
Experience working with analytics teams to align qualitative findings with behavioral telemetry (mixpanel, GA, amplitude is a plus).

Soft Skills

Exceptional stakeholder management and communication—able to present research logistics and findings to executives and product teams.
Strong project and time management: juggle multiple concurrent studies, deadlines, and shifting priorities.
Detail-oriented with rigorous documentation habits and a focus on participant experience and data quality.
Empathy and active listening skills to create comfortable participant sessions and elicit honest feedback.
Problem-solving mindset: quickly adapt study flows and troubleshoot technical issues under time pressure.
Collaboration and facilitation skills for workshops, co-creation sessions, and cross-functional design critiques.
Ethical judgment and discretion handling sensitive user data and participant information.
Ability to synthesize large volumes of qualitative data into concise, actionable recommendations.
Coaching and training capability to scale research best practices across teams.
Comfortable working in agile environments and supporting rapid research sprints.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Psychology, Cognitive Science, Anthropology, Sociology, Human Factors, Design, Information Science, or related field; or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in HCI, Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, or related discipline, or professional certification in UX Research or Research Operations.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Cognitive Psychology / Experimental Psychology
Anthropology / Sociology
Human Factors / Ergonomics
Information Science / Interaction Design

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 1–4 years in UX research, research operations, usability testing, market research, or related roles.

Preferred: 3+ years coordinating and executing usability studies, managing recruitment and research tools, and working closely with product and design teams in a tech or product-driven environment. Experience working with remote research platforms, vendor management, and a proven track record of driving research operations improvements is highly desirable.