Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for User Experience Research Intern

🎯 Role Definition

The User Experience Research Intern supports the UX research function by planning and executing user research activities, synthesizing findings into actionable recommendations, and helping scale best practices in research ops. Reporting to a Senior UX Researcher or Design Lead, the intern will collaborate across product, design, engineering, and marketing teams to surface user needs, validate concepts and prototypes, and measure usability and satisfaction metrics. This role is ideal for students or early-career professionals who want hands-on exposure to human-centered design research methods, recruitment and screening, remote and moderated testing platforms, and data analysis workflows.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

UX Design student or bootcamp graduate with project-based research experience
Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Human Factors, or related research assistant roles
Product or design internships with exposure to user testing

Advancement To:

UX Researcher / Associate UX Researcher
Product Designer with research specialization
Research Operations Coordinator

Lateral Moves:

Product Management Associate
Customer Insights Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Plan and execute user interviews, contextual inquiries, and diary studies to understand user goals, pain points, and behaviors; write recruitment screener questions and manage participant scheduling and incentives.
Design and run usability tests (moderated and unmoderated) for wireframes, prototypes, and live features using tools such as Lookback, UserTesting, Maze, or similar, capturing task success, time-on-task, and subjective satisfaction metrics.
Create research protocols, test scripts, and consent materials that adhere to ethical guidelines and privacy best practices for both remote and in-person studies.
Conduct heuristic evaluations and competitive usability analyses to benchmark product usability and identify quick-win improvements for designers and product managers.
Collect and analyze quantitative data from surveys, analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel), and A/B test results to complement qualitative insights and inform recommendations.
Perform qualitative analysis including affinity mapping, thematic coding, and building journey maps to synthesize insights into clear patterns and user archetypes.
Build and maintain participant databases and research repositories (e.g., Dovetail, Notion, Airtable) to make insights discoverable and reusable across teams.
Collaborate with product managers and designers to translate research findings into prioritized product recommendations, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
Prepare well-structured research artifacts: concise research briefs, executive summaries, slide decks, and video highlight reels for cross-functional stakeholders.
Present research findings to stakeholders in clear, compelling formats that drive decision-making and product improvements.
Support recruitment and screening of participants across demographics and user segments, ensuring representative sampling where possible.
Assist in moderating workshops, co-design sessions, and usability labs to engage stakeholders and iterate on design concepts.
Help define and track UX metrics (e.g., SUS, NPS, task success) and contribute to dashboards that monitor user satisfaction and product usability over time.
Run remote unmoderated studies and prototype validations; configure test flows, collect participant feedback, and synthesize results into actionable insights.
Conduct accessibility walkthroughs and help identify usability blockers for assistive technology users; document recommendations for inclusive product design.
Work with data analysts and engineers to instrument product telemetry required for behavior analysis and experiment tracking.
Maintain rigorous documentation of research processes, participant consent, and data storage procedures compliant with privacy policies and regulations (e.g., GDPR where applicable).
Support longitudinal research initiatives by coordinating follow-ups, tracking behavioral changes, and summarizing trends across study waves.
Assist with rapid formative research in agile sprints—delivering quick-turn insights to validate design choices within tight timelines.
Identify opportunities for continuous improvement in research methodology, tooling, and participant recruitment to scale research practice.
Contribute to cross-functional retrospectives by sharing lessons learned from research studies and suggesting process improvements.
Curate and share micro-insights (e.g., 1–2 slide findings, video clips, quotes) to amplify research impact across marketing, customer success, and engineering teams.
Help steward empathy-building activities for the organization (e.g., user storyboards, personas, recorded customer stories) to embed user focus in product decisions.

Secondary Functions

Assist in preparing institutional review board (IRB) or internal ethics documentation where required for research involving human subjects.
Conduct ad-hoc exploratory analyses to support decision-making for product experiments and roadmap prioritization.
Support development of recruitment incentives strategy and manage logistics for participant compensation.
Help maintain and update research templates, UX test libraries, and knowledge-base articles to streamline future studies.
Participate in sprint planning and design critique sessions to surface research needs and align on research timelines with product development cycles.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Strong familiarity with core UX research methods: user interviews, usability testing, contextual inquiry, diary studies, and surveys.
Experience or coursework using qualitative analysis techniques: coding, affinity mapping, journey mapping, and thematic synthesis.
Basic quantitative analysis competency: descriptive statistics, survey analysis, and comfort interpreting metrics from analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel).
Practical experience with remote research and usability tools such as UserTesting, Lookback, Maze, Optimal Workshop, or similar platforms.
Experience using research repository and collaboration tools like Dovetail, Notion, Airtable, or Confluence to document and share insights.
Familiarity with prototyping and design tools (Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD) to run prototype tests and annotate issues.
Basic scripting for data cleaning or survey automation (optional but valuable): SQL, Python (pandas), or R for small-scale analyses.
Knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG) and assistive technology considerations for inclusive research.
Competence in creating clear research deliverables: slide decks, executive summaries, participant consent forms, and research reports.
Familiarity with recruitment and screening best practices, panels, and vendor coordination for participant sourcing.

Soft Skills

Exceptional written and verbal communication; able to distill complex findings into succinct, persuasive recommendations for diverse stakeholders.
Strong empathy and active listening skills for interviewing users and uncovering latent needs.
Intellectual curiosity and a hypothesis-driven mindset: asking the right questions and designing studies to test assumptions.
Collaboration and stakeholder management: comfortable working with designers, PMs, engineers, and marketing across the product lifecycle.
Critical thinking and pattern recognition to synthesize mixed-methods data into compelling insights.
Time management and organization to manage multiple research activities and participant logistics simultaneously.
Adaptability and resilience in fast-paced, iterative product environments with shifting priorities.
Attention to detail in data collection, consent, and reporting to ensure research rigor and reliability.
Facilitation skills for workshops and co-design sessions that enable productive stakeholder engagement.
Ethical judgment and responsibility when handling sensitive user data and participant relationships.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Currently enrolled in or recently graduated from a Bachelor's or Master’s program in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Cognitive Psychology, Human Factors, Design, Sociology, Anthropology, Data Science, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Coursework or certificate in UX research, human-centered design, qualitative methods, statistics, or research methods.
Prior formal training in usability testing, research ethics, or mixed-methods analysis.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Cognitive Psychology / Experimental Psychology
Human Factors / Ergonomics
Anthropology / Sociology
Design / Product Design
Data Science / Applied Statistics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

0–2 years (internship, academic projects, research assistant roles)

Preferred:

Prior internship or project experience conducting user interviews, usability tests, or survey research.
Demonstrable portfolio or case studies of research activities (academic or practical) that showcase methods, outcomes, and impact.
Familiarity with at least one research tool (e.g., Dovetail, Lookback, UserTesting) and one analytics platform.