Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for UX Research Technician

🎯 Role Definition

A UX Research Technician is an early‑to‑mid level practitioner who supports user research activities end-to-end, from study design and participant recruitment to test administration, data capture, and preliminary analysis. This role operates laboratory and remote test environments, manages tooling, ensures high data quality, and enables UX Researchers and cross‑functional teams to make evidence‑based design decisions. Ideal candidates combine practical research methods, solid technical tool fluency, strong documentation habits, and excellent participant‑facing skills.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Research Assistant or Lab Technician (Human Factors)
Junior UX Designer or Product Designer with research exposure
Psychology undergraduate roles, academic research assistant

Advancement To:

UX Researcher / Product Researcher
Senior UX Research Technician / Research Lab Manager
User Research Lead or Research Operations Manager

Lateral Moves:

UX Designer
Design Operations / Research Operations
Data Analyst (with quantitative focus)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Plan, coordinate, and execute usability tests (moderated and unmoderated) across web, mobile, and embedded products, ensuring protocols align with research objectives and stakeholder needs.
Recruit, screen, schedule, and onboard research participants using panels, internal recruit pools, and third‑party recruitment platforms, maintaining participant databases and consent records.
Set up, operate, and maintain UX research labs, remote test environments, screen‑recording and audio/video capture hardware and software, ensuring reliable, high‑quality recordings and data backups.
Moderate user interviews and usability sessions under supervision, ask clear follow‑up questions, and adapt probes to uncover pain points while preserving study validity.
Design and deploy online surveys and questionnaires (Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms), including logic, branching, and quality checks for quantitative data collection.
Collect, tag, and transcribe qualitative data from interviews and usability sessions, applying timestamping, speaker identification, and confidentiality best practices.
Perform session triage and initial coding of usability findings—create first‑pass affinity clusters, highlight critical usability issues, and surface observable patterns for researchers.
Prepare detailed session summaries, highlight reels, and annotated clips for stakeholders, emphasizing action‑oriented findings and direct user quotes for impact.
Run remote moderated and unmoderated studies using tools such as UserTesting, Lookback, Maze, or PlaybookUX; configure tests, monitor live sessions, and escalate technical issues.
Execute standardized test scripts, task lists, and follow structured moderation guides to ensure consistency, repeatability, and comparability across sessions.
Administer and maintain participant incentive programs, process honoraria/payments, and track budgetary spend against study plans.
Assist with quantitative data capture and basic analysis: clean datasets, compute descriptive statistics, visualize survey results, and prepare tables/charts for researcher review.
Support accessibility and inclusive research efforts by recruiting diverse participants, running assistive‑technology tests, and documenting accessibility barriers.
Maintain and update research repositories, tagging and indexing artifacts (notes, video clips, artifacts) in the team’s knowledge base (Confluence, Notion, Dovetail).
Ensure research governance and ethics compliance: manage consent documentation, privacy notices, and secure storage of personally identifiable information (PII).
Troubleshoot technical issues during live sessions (audio/video, screen sharing, device emulation), coordinate with IT or engineering when complex fixes are required.
Calibrate and validate remote and in‑lab measurement tools (eye trackers, motion sensors, biometric devices) and assist with calibration protocols to ensure accuracy of collected metrics.
Collaborate with product, design, engineering, and analytics teams to translate research needs into test plans, recruitment criteria, and measurement approaches.
Execute iterative rapid guerrilla testing in product areas with tight timelines: recruit ad‑hoc participants, run short moderated sessions, and synthesize findings quickly for sprint review.
Create reproducible research artifacts: annotated wireframes, task success metrics, standardized README documents for datasets, and experiment runbooks.
Support longitudinal and diary studies by monitoring participant compliance, curating incoming entries, and flagging trends or dropouts for the core research team.
Participate in design critiques and sprint planning to represent research operations constraints and timeline impacts, helping to prioritize study pipelines.

Secondary Functions

Maintain and optimize the research toolstack and license inventory, negotiate with vendors, and evaluate new platforms for remote testing, transcription, and analysis to improve throughput.
Train new research technicians and interns on lab protocols, moderation best practices, data hygiene, and ethical considerations to ensure team consistency.
Produce internal training materials and quick‑reference guides for common research tasks (recruiting, consent templates, session setup, and troubleshooting).
Contribute to the research calendar and intake process by triaging incoming research requests and estimating effort and resource needs.
Assist with basic statistical analysis tasks (t‑tests, ANOVA, cross‑tabs) under researcher guidance to validate preliminary hypotheses.
Run QA on prototype builds or experimental features prior to sessions to detect obviously broken flows and avoid wasted participant time.
Help coordinate participant panels and personas, maintain segmentation metadata, and ensure the panel reflects product audience diversity goals.
Collect and manage lab usage metrics, participant throughput, and study ROI data to inform continuous improvement of research operations.
Support cross‑functional communications by preparing concise briefs, executive summaries, and slide decks for stakeholder demos and sprint reviews.
Collaborate with data privacy and legal teams to update consent forms and data retention policies in accordance with local and international regulations.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Practical experience running moderated and unmoderated usability tests across mobile and web platforms.
Proficiency with remote testing and recording platforms (UserTesting, Lookback, PlaybookUX, Lookback, Zoom) and lab recording systems.
Familiarity with survey design and distribution tools such as Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, or Google Forms including branching and logic.
Basic qualitative analysis skills: transcription, affinity mapping, thematic coding, and generation of synthesis artifacts.
Experience with basic quantitative tasks: descriptive statistics, pivot tables, cross‑tabulations, and visualization (Excel, Google Sheets, Tableau, or similar).
Hands‑on knowledge of UX research repositories and analysis platforms (Dovetail, Aurelius, Notion, Confluence).
Competence with screen capture, video editing, and clip annotation tools (Camtasia, VEED, quick video editors) to produce highlight reels.
Familiarity with accessibility testing tools and guidelines (WCAG basics, screen reader checks, keyboard navigation testing).
Comfort with participant recruitment platforms and CRM-style participant tracking (Ethnio, Respondent.io, internal panels).
Basic working knowledge of HTML/CSS and device emulation for troubleshooting responsive layouts during testing.
Experience with transcription platforms and automated speech‑to‑text tools and workflows (Otter.ai, Rev, Descript).
Familiarity with analytics basics (Google Analytics event validation, basic funnels) to align qualitative insights with quantitative signals.

Soft Skills

Strong verbal moderation and active listening skills to elicit honest user feedback in interviews and tests.
Excellent written communication for creating clear session guides, reports, and stakeholder summaries.
Strong attention to detail and organization to manage recruitment, scheduling, consent, and data integrity.
Empathy and user‑centered mindset to interpret user behavior without bias and protect participant dignity.
Time management and prioritization in a fast‑paced environment balancing multiple concurrent studies.
Collaboration and stakeholder management to translate researcher requirements into operational plans and communicate constraints.
Critical thinking and curiosity to spot usability patterns and suggest follow‑up experiments or questions.
Discretion and ethical judgment when handling PII and sensitive user data.
Adaptability to shifting project priorities, new tools, and remote vs. in‑lab modalities.
Ability to distill complex findings into concise, actionable recommendations for non‑research audiences.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Human‑Computer Interaction, Psychology, Human Factors, Cognitive Science, Design, Sociology, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Master’s in HCI, Human Factors, Interaction Design, Cognitive Psychology, or equivalent applied research experience.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human‑Computer Interaction (HCI)
Psychology (cognitive, experimental, social)
Human Factors / Ergonomics
Design / Interaction Design
Sociology / Anthropology
Data Science or Analytics (for quantitative emphasis)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

1–4 years of hands‑on UX or human‑factors research support, lab operations, or usability testing experience.

Preferred:

2+ years operating UX research studies end‑to‑end, including participant recruitment, session moderation, data collection, and initial analysis; demonstrable experience with common research tools and a portfolio of study artifacts (session notes, clips, synthesis summaries).