Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Usability Assistant

🎯 Role Definition

The Usability Assistant supports user-centered product development by planning and executing usability studies, recruiting participants, facilitating remote and in-person testing sessions, analyzing behavioral and attitudinal data, and delivering clear, prioritized recommendations to product and design teams. This role emphasizes practical experience with usability testing tools, accessibility checks (WCAG), basic quantitative analysis (SUS, task success), and strong stakeholder communication to drive measurable UX improvements.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

UX Research Intern or Student Researcher in HCI
Customer Support / Product Support Analyst with customer behavior insights
Junior Product Designer or QA Analyst with a focus on user flows

Advancement To:

Usability Specialist / UX Researcher
Product Designer with a UX research focus
UX Research Lead or Manager of User Research

Lateral Moves:

UX Writer or Content Designer
Accessibility Specialist (a11y Specialist)
Product Analyst / UX Analytics Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Plan, design, and administer moderated and unmoderated usability tests for web, mobile, and responsive experiences, including creating test scripts, success metrics, task scenarios, and realistic prototypes that reflect production flows.
Recruit, screen, and manage study participants using screening questionnaires, screener tools, consent forms, and incentives management, ensuring diverse and representative user samples.
Facilitate usability sessions (in-person and remote), moderating interviews and think-aloud protocols while maintaining neutrality, eliciting rich qualitative insights, and managing session logistics.
Conduct unmoderated remote testing using platforms such as UserTesting, Lookback, or Optimal Workshop, set up tasks and metrics, monitor incoming sessions, and triage technical issues as they arise.
Run accessibility-focused usability checks against WCAG guidelines, conduct inclusive testing with assistive technologies (screen readers, keyboard navigation), and document accessibility barriers with remediation recommendations.
Execute heuristic evaluations and cognitive walkthroughs to identify immediate usability issues, linking findings to best practices in human–computer interaction and recognized usability heuristics.
Synthesize qualitative notes, session transcripts, and video clips into clear, evidence-backed findings, user pain points, and actionable recommendations prioritized by effort, impact, and product goals.
Compute and interpret quantitative usability metrics such as System Usability Scale (SUS), task success and completion rates, time on task, error rates, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) when applicable.
Prepare polished deliverables: research reports, executive summaries, UX finding decks, annotated session clips, and prioritized issue trackers for product roadmaps and sprint planning.
Work closely with product managers and designers to translate usability findings into clear acceptance criteria, design changes, A/B test hypotheses, or iterative prototypes for immediate implementation.
Support rapid iterative testing by setting up guerrilla usability studies or remote rapid tests to validate design decisions under time-constrained product sprints.
Maintain and organize a research repository (repository of recordings, transcripts, personas, and insights) to maximize reuse of findings across teams and reduce duplicate research effort.
Create and maintain personas, journey maps, and user scenario documents grounded in observed behavior, customer interviews, and analytics to inform product priorities.
Collaborate with analytics teams to correlate behavioral analytics (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Hotjar) with qualitative usability findings to identify high-impact friction points and usage patterns.
Produce and deliver stakeholder-facing presentations and workshops to communicate insights, align teams on user pain points, and lead prioritized action planning sessions.
Document recruitment pipelines, test protocols, consent documentation, and research templates to ensure ethical research practices and GDPR/privacy compliance.
Capture and tag usability issues in project tracking systems (Jira, Asana, Trello) with clear reproduction steps, screenshots, and recommended fixes to streamline engineering triage and resolution.
Support diary studies, longitudinal usability research, and follow-up interviews to capture long-term usability trends and measure adoption or retention impacts from design changes.
Coordinate with localization and internationalization teams to validate usability across markets, languages, and culturally-specific interactions, adjusting study materials and recruitment accordingly.
Train and mentor junior researchers, interns, or cross-functional team members on basic usability methods, moderation skills, and note-taking standards to scale research capacity.
Assist with procurement and maintenance of usability lab equipment, remote testing licenses, and recording software, and maintain budget-conscious vendor selection for participant recruitment vendors and panel services.
Design and execute card sorting and tree-testing exercises to inform information architecture and navigation improvements, synthesizing findings into IA recommendations.
Support A/B test design and interpretation by providing qualitative context to experimental variants and helping craft meaningful UX-oriented success criteria.
Ensure study quality and reliability by performing pilot tests, calibrating tasks, and iterating on test scripts to reduce bias and improve the signal-to-noise ratio in research outputs.

Secondary Functions

Support cross-functional sprint planning by contributing usability insights that inform backlog prioritization and acceptance criteria.
Maintain and update a central UX research calendar, participant database, and study tracking log to optimize scheduling, reduce recruitment lead time, and prevent over-testing the same users.
Assist product and design teams with quick usability sanity checks, heuristic guides, and UX best-practice references during design reviews.
Liaise with legal and privacy teams to ensure participant data handling complies with GDPR, CCPA, and internal research policies.
Contribute to continuous improvement of research processes, templates, and tooling: streamlining recruitment, consent capture, transcription workflows, and reporting templates.
Represent the UX research discipline in Agile ceremonies, demo days, and retrospective meetings, translating user evidence into clear sprint-level actions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Practical experience running usability tests (moderated and unmoderated) across web and mobile platforms using tools such as UserTesting, Lookback, Optimal Workshop, or Morae.
Strong qualitative research skills: interview moderation, contextual inquiry, thematic analysis, affinity mapping, and writing clear research reports.
Familiarity with quantitative usability metrics and analysis: SUS, task success and completion rates, time-on-task analysis, basic statistical interpretation (means, medians, confidence intervals).
Accessibility testing knowledge, including WCAG 2.1 principles and experience testing with screen readers (NVDA, VoiceOver) and keyboard-only navigation flows.
Proficiency with prototyping and design tools (Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, Axure) to construct testable prototypes or modify existing designs for studies.
Experience with analytics and session replay tools (Google Analytics, Hotjar, Mixpanel) and the ability to synthesize behavioral data with qualitative findings.
Competence in creating test artifacts: recruitment screener forms, consent templates, test scripts, task scenarios, and post-test surveys.
Familiarity with user research repositories and knowledge management tools (Dovetail, Airtable, Notion) to organize clips, transcripts, and insights.
Basic data-handling skills: spreadsheet analysis (Excel/Google Sheets), simple data cleaning, and the ability to visualize metrics and produce dashboards.
Video editing and clipping skills to create short session highlights for stakeholder presentations (basic use of tools such as Camtasia, iMovie, or built-in platform clip tools).
Experience coordinating participant recruitment and managing vendor relationships or participant panels.
Basic understanding of A/B testing fundamentals, experiment design, and how qualitative research complements quantitative experiment results.

Soft Skills

Empathetic listening and strong verbal communication skills for effective moderation and stakeholder presentations.
Excellent written communication and synthesis skills to produce compelling, actionable research reports and executive summaries.
Strong collaboration and cross-functional influencing skills: ability to work closely with product managers, designers, engineers, and marketing.
Critical thinking and problem-solving orientation with a bias toward actionable outcomes and measurable UX improvements.
Attention to detail and ethical judgment when handling participant data, consent, and privacy considerations.
Time management and organization skills to run multiple studies in parallel and meet sprint-driven deadlines.
Adaptability and curiosity to learn new tools, methods, and approaches for evolving product needs.
Facilitation and workshop-leading skills to run empathy sessions, prioritization workshops, and design critiques.
Stakeholder management and negotiation skills to align on research scope, timelines, and deliverables.
Resilience and patience for iterative testing cycles and the ability to advocate for user needs in ambiguous contexts.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

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

Preferred Education:

Master's degree or postgraduate certification in HCI, UX Research, Human Factors, Behavioral Science, or related disciplines is preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Cognitive Psychology or Behavioral Science
Interaction / Product Design
Human Factors / Ergonomics
Anthropology, Sociology, or Qualitative Research Methods

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 1–3 years of hands-on experience in usability testing, UX research assistance, or customer insights roles.

Preferred: 2–5 years experience supporting or conducting usability studies, accessibility testing, and cross-functional UX projects with demonstrated examples of research deliverables, participant recruitment, and synthesis artifacts.