Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for UX Research Coordinator

🎯 Role Definition

A UX Research Coordinator partners with UX researchers, product managers, designers, and engineering teams to plan, execute, and operationalize user research. This role focuses on research operations: participant recruitment, scheduling and logistics, study setup (in-person and remote), data collection, and synthesis support. The Coordinator ensures high-quality, repeatable research processes, maintains research repositories, and helps translate research findings into actionable insights that inform product decisions. Ideal candidates balance strong project-management rigor with empathy for users, solid knowledge of qualitative and quantitative methods, and fluency with research tools and collaboration platforms.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

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

Advancement To:

UX Researcher / Senior UX Researcher
Research Operations Manager / Head of Research Ops
Design Program Manager or Product Research Lead

Lateral Moves:

Product Manager (with product-facing experience)
Design Manager / UX Program Manager
Customer Experience Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Manage end-to-end participant recruitment and screening for qualitative and quantitative research studies (remote, moderated, unmoderated, diary studies, and in-person usability testing), including building screener surveys, maintaining participant panels, and ensuring demographic diversity and target persona fit.
Coordinate scheduling and logistics across cross-functional research stakeholders and participants, optimize session calendars, handle informed consent, incentives, and logistics for multi-time-zone and international studies.
Set up and operate remote research and usability testing tools (e.g., Zoom, Lookback, UserTesting, UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, Hotjar, PlaybookUX) and in-lab equipment, ensuring recordings, permissions, and data capture are reliable and compliant.
Draft and manage research materials: participant welcome packets, consent forms, discussion guides templates, recruitment copy, pre- and post-study surveys, and follow-up communications to participants.
Maintain and curate the research repository and knowledge base (e.g., Dovetail, Confluence, Notion, Airtable), tagging artifacts, transcripts, videos, and insights so findings are discoverable and reusable across teams.
Support transcription, timestamping, and initial coding of qualitative data — prep raw data for synthesis by researchers by producing preliminary summaries, affinity clusters, and highlighting high-impact quotes and video clips.
Administer incentives and vendor relationships, including payment workflows, vendor selection for recruitment panels, and tracking participant compensation budgets to ensure timeliness and compliance.
Create and maintain study templates, SOPs, and standardized processes for research execution, quality control checklists, and accessibility guidelines that improve throughput and repeatability.
Run unmoderated usability tests and survey distributions at scale, monitor responses and quality metrics in real time, and surface blockers to researchers to maintain study fidelity.
Monitor and enforce participant privacy and data-handling practices (GDPR, CCPA, company policies), coordinate with legal and security teams for sensitive studies, and ensure secure storage of recordings and transcripts.
Analyze and prepare quantitative study metadata and KPI dashboards (recruitment conversion rates, completion rates, survey data quality) to inform project planning and resource allocation.
Assist researchers in performing basic statistical or descriptive analyses for survey results, usability metrics, and A/B test readouts; prepare charts and summary tables for stakeholder consumption.
Facilitate research sessions and serve as note-taker, observer coordinator, or secondary moderator when needed, capturing detailed observational notes and follow-up action items during live sessions.
Liaise between product teams and research leadership to scope research timelines, communicate participant readiness, and ensure research milestones are aligned with product roadmaps.
Coordinate pre- and post-study debriefs with stakeholders, circulate research briefs and highlights, and support publication of research highlights in company-wide channels to drive adoption.
Manage onboarding for new research team members and interns: train on recruitment tools, research repository conventions, and study operations best practices.
Implement and maintain accessibility- and inclusion-focused recruitment practices, recommend screening criteria to ensure diverse participant representation, and support culturally sensitive study design.
Troubleshoot technical or participant experience issues during sessions (connectivity, recording failure, browser compatibility) and escalate to engineering/IT as required.
Maintain a centralized research calendar and intake process to prioritize requests, balance workloads, and provide clear timelines and SLAs for product partners requesting research.
Track and report on research operational metrics and continuous improvement initiatives (time-to-recruit, no-show rates, study throughput) and propose process improvements to increase efficiency.
Coordinate video and highlight reel creation: clip compelling participant moments, curate soundbites, and create short deliverables for stakeholder presentations or design reviews.
Support longitudinal and diary study administration, including participant check-ins, retention strategies, and progressive incentive scheduling.
Prepare procurement requests, manage vendor invoices, and reconcile research operations budgets in partnership with finance and procurement teams.
Assist in integrating research outputs with product analytics and design systems by tagging findings with product areas, personas, and feature flags to make insights actionable.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc research requests from product teams by scoping quick studies, defining low-friction recruitment approaches, and recommending methods for rapid learning.
Contribute to the organization’s research ops strategy and roadmap by identifying tooling gaps, automations, and vendor recommendations that increase team velocity.
Translate cross-functional data and business needs into operational workflows for recruiting, data collection, and analysis pipelines.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies to coordinate research deliverables and ensure alignment with product development cycles.
Act as the primary point of contact for external research vendors and third-party participant panels; manage contracts, SLAs, and quality control for outsourced research tasks.
Maintain an up-to-date list of best practices, legal requirements, and ethical guidelines for user research; train teams and provide documentation to keep research compliant and participant-focused.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Participant recruitment and screening: designing screener surveys, managing panel databases, and optimizing conversion and retention rates.
Remote and in-person study tooling: proficiency with Zoom, Lookback, UserTesting, UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, and similar usability platforms.
Research repository management: experience with Dovetail, Notion, Confluence, Airtable, or similar systems for tagging, archiving, and surfacing research artifacts.
Transcription and qualitative prep: familiarity with transcription workflows and tools (Rev, Otter.ai) and preparing transcripts for coding and synthesis.
Survey design and basic quantitative analysis: constructing surveys (Qualtrics, Google Forms), cleaning data, and running descriptive statistics and cross-tabs.
Usability testing setup and troubleshooting: audio/video capture, screen sharing, and remote lab configuration.
Data privacy and compliance: working knowledge of GDPR/CCPA basics and secure data handling for participant PII.
Project management and scheduling tools: advanced use of Calendly, Google Calendar, Jira, Asana, or Trello to manage study timelines and stakeholders.
Basic scripting or automation: ability to use Zapier, Make, or simple scripts to automate recruitment, reminders, and data flows.
Multimedia editing and clip curation: clipping video highlights, producing short reels for presentations using tools like Loom, Descript, or basic video editors.
Familiarity with UX and product tooling: Figma, Miro, and analytics dashboards to align research artifacts with design and product contexts.

Soft Skills

Stakeholder management: clear communication with product managers, designers, engineers, and leadership to align expectations and timelines.
Empathy and ethical sensitivity: respectful engagement with participants, maintaining dignity and confidentiality across studies.
Strong organization and attention to detail: juggling multiple concurrent studies while ensuring quality and accuracy.
Clear written and verbal communication: producing concise research briefs, recruitment messaging, participant instructions, and executive summaries.
Facilitation and note-taking: running or supporting sessions, synthesizing live observations, and capturing action-ready highlights.
Problem-solving and adaptability: quickly troubleshooting technical or scheduling challenges and pivoting logistics when needed.
Time management and prioritization: estimating realistic timelines and managing SLAs for fast-turn research requests.
Collaboration and team orientation: working cross-functionally to embed research findings into roadmaps and product decisions.
Cultural competence and inclusive design mindset: designing recruitment and study materials that reflect diverse populations and reduce bias.
Continuous improvement orientation: seeking metrics-driven ways to reduce no-show rates, speed recruitment, and improve research throughput.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

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

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree or postgraduate coursework in HCI, Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, or similar disciplines is preferred but not required.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Cognitive Psychology or Experimental Psychology
Anthropology or Sociology
Human Factors and Ergonomics
Information Science / Library Science (for repository management)
Design / Product Design

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2–5 years of professional experience supporting or coordinating UX, customer, or market research in a product or agency environment.

Preferred:

3+ years focused on research operations, participant recruitment, and usability testing for digital products; experience working with enterprise or consumer-facing product teams and demonstrated success managing multiple concurrent research programs.