Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for UX Research Assistant

🎯 Role Definition

The UX Research Assistant supports product, design, and research teams by planning and executing user research activities, recruiting and managing participants, collecting and synthesizing qualitative and quantitative data, and delivering clear, actionable insights that inform product decisions. This role combines hands-on research operations (moderation, transcription, recruitment) with basic analysis and documentation responsibilities, enabling senior researchers and cross-functional partners to move faster and make evidence-based decisions.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

UX Research Intern or Research Assistant (academic or industry)
Junior UX Designer or Product Design Intern with a research focus
Graduate or undergraduate in HCI, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors, or related field

Advancement To:

UX Researcher / Product Researcher
UX Researcher (Mid-level) or Research Specialist
Senior UX Researcher or Research Lead / Design Research Manager

Lateral Moves:

UX Designer (with research focus)
Product Manager (with product research experience)
Data Analyst or Customer Insights Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Plan, prepare, and execute end-to-end usability testing sessions (remote and in-person) following test plans defined by senior researchers, ensuring test scripts, prototypes, and consent materials are production-ready and aligned with research objectives.
Recruit, screen, schedule, and manage study participants using recruiting platforms and internal panels; coordinate incentives, reminders, and logistics to maximize participation and retention.
Moderate and co-moderate user interviews, usability tests, diary studies, and contextual inquiry sessions with empathy and neutral probing to elicit deep insights about user behavior, needs, and pain points.
Conduct unmoderated remote testing and handle setup, quality checks, and follow-up for platforms such as UserTesting, Lookback, or Optimal Workshop to rapidly collect usability metrics and qualitative feedback.
Design and distribute surveys using Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, or similar tools; analyze survey results to quantify user needs, preferences, and satisfaction metrics.
Transcribe, timestamp, and annotate recorded sessions accurately; perform first-pass qualitative coding and tagging to surface recurring themes and patterns for senior researchers to synthesize.
Create research artifacts such as participant scripts, moderator guides, consent forms, recruitment screener templates, and testing checklists that adhere to ethical and accessibility standards.
Assist with basic quantitative analysis: calculate task success rates, time-on-task, error rates, SUS (System Usability Scale) scores, and other usability metrics to complement qualitative findings.
Summarize findings into clear deliverables: research briefs, insight summaries, highlight videos, user quotes, and raw data packages to support stakeholder review and decision-making.
Maintain and update the research repository, tagging transcripts, recordings, and reports in tools like Dovetail, Notion, or an internal knowledge base to ensure insights are discoverable and reusable.
Support recruitment operations for longitudinal studies and diary studies, maintaining participant panels, consent documentation, and contact logs with data privacy best practices.
Prepare and moderate internal research playback sessions and cross-functional demos, presenting findings and recommended design implications to product managers, designers, and engineers.
Conduct heuristic evaluations and simple competitive analyses to identify usability issues and market patterns that inform research priorities and quick-win design recommendations.
Assist with A/B test setup and result interpretation by collaborating with data analysts and product teams, translating research hypotheses into user-facing metrics and observational criteria.
Ensure research sessions are inclusive and accessible by adapting test materials and moderation techniques to meet the needs of diverse users and assistive technologies.
Monitor research budgets, manage participant incentive disbursement, and track project timelines to ensure studies are delivered on schedule and within scope.
Set up and maintain lab hardware and software (microphones, webcams, screen-recording tools) and ensure recordings meet quality standards for transcription and analysis.
Support recruitment and engagement for specialized user groups (e.g., enterprise users, accessibility users, multilingual populations) including coordination of interpreters or accommodations when needed.
Collaborate with product analytics to triangulate qualitative insights with usage data (events, funnels, retention) from tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Amplitude to strengthen recommendations.
Run exploratory research sprints that combine rapid interviews, guerrilla testing, and quick surveys to inform early-stage product discovery and reduce design risk.
Create and maintain persona drafts, journey maps, and evidence-backed user profiles that are regularly updated with new research inputs to guide product roadmaps.
Assist in developing research roadmaps and prioritize incoming research requests by assessing impact, feasibility, and business alignment in consultation with senior researchers.
Adhere to institutional review board (IRB) guidelines or company research ethics policies where applicable, ensuring participant privacy, consent, and secure handling of PII.
Provide operational support for multi-site or international research projects, coordinating across time zones, suppliers, and local legal/compliance requirements.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc research requests from product and design teams, including fast-turnaround user checks and guerrilla usability tests.
Help build and maintain a centralized insights library so past learnings are easy to find and apply across product teams.
Prepare supporting visuals for research reports such as annotated screenshots, journey map excerpts, and short highlight reels to increase stakeholder engagement.
Monitor and evaluate new research tooling and vendor options; assist in vendor evaluations and pilot implementations.
Contribute to continuous improvement of research operations by documenting SOPs, recruitment scripts, and moderation best practices.
Assist with light data-cleaning tasks and prepare datasets for analysis in spreadsheets or basic statistical packages.
Shadow senior researchers on strategic discovery work to grow methodology skills and align on best practices for research synthesis.
Support community-building efforts by organizing participant panels, research newsletters, and internal research show-and-tell sessions.
Help ensure research outputs are SEO and accessibility friendly when publishing public-facing insights, case studies, or blog posts.
Provide occasional cross-functional support to marketing or customer success teams by synthesizing frontline user feedback into concise action items.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proficiency in planning and moderating user interviews and usability tests (remote and in-person), including development of test scripts and moderator guides.
Experience with participant recruitment and screener creation, using panels, social channels, or recruitment platforms.
Familiarity with remote research platforms and tools such as UserTesting, Lookback, Optimal Workshop, Hotjar, Maze, or similar.
Experience with transcription, timestamping, and qualitative tagging tools (e.g., Dovetail, Otter.ai, Rev) and basic qualitative coding techniques.
Basic quantitative analysis skills: calculating task success rates, time-on-task, SUS scores, and summarizing survey results using Excel, Google Sheets, or basic statistics tools.
Competence with survey platforms (Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Typeform) for designing, distributing, and analyzing questionnaires.
Working knowledge of analytics platforms (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude) to correlate behavioral data with qualitative insights.
Familiarity with design and prototyping tools (Figma, Sketch, InVision) to quickly understand and test interactive prototypes.
Comfortable creating clear research artifacts and deliverables: research briefs, highlight reels, journey maps, persona drafts, and presentation decks.
Understanding of research ethics, privacy best practices, and consent documentation; experience handling PII securely.
Basic SQL or data-querying skills are a plus for pulling user segments or event data to support mixed-methods research.
Technical setup and troubleshooting skills for recording equipment, screen-sharing, and remote testing environments.

Soft Skills

Strong written and verbal communication skills: synthesize complex findings into concise, actionable recommendations for product and design stakeholders.
Empathy and active listening: create a safe environment for participants to share candid feedback.
Attention to detail: ensure transcripts, tags, and notes are accurate and high quality to support reliable synthesis.
Collaboration and stakeholder management: work effectively across design, product, engineering, and analytics teams.
Time management and prioritization: juggle multiple studies, participant schedules, and deliverables while meeting deadlines.
Critical thinking and pattern recognition: identify root causes, trends, and high-impact opportunities from mixed data sources.
Confidence in facilitation: lead internal research sharing sessions and support cross-functional decision-making.
Adaptability and learning mindset: quickly adopt new tools, methods, and research approaches as project needs evolve.
Ethical judgment and discretion when handling sensitive user data and participant interactions.
Problem-solving orientation: convert ambiguous questions into testable hypotheses and practical next steps.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

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

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree or postgraduate coursework in HCI, UX Research, Behavioral Science, Cognitive Psychology, or equivalent research-oriented programs.

Relevant Fields of Study:

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

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 0–3 years of hands-on experience in UX research, research assistance, usability testing, or related user-centered research roles. Recent graduates with internship or academic research project experience are welcome.

Preferred: 1–2+ years supporting product teams with mixed-methods research, or 1+ years as a research assistant in industry or academia. Demonstrated experience with participant recruitment, session moderation, transcription/tagging, and basic analysis using the tools listed above is highly desirable.