Updated: Mar 15, 2025 - The Design Researcher excels in observing and moderating user research, employing ethnography-type contextual inquiries, co-creation exercises, and usability tests in healthcare settings. Develops and implements research protocols, discussion guides, and data collection tools, adept at managing data analysis and transforming findings into actionable insights. Collaborates with interdisciplinary teams, synthesizing data to define user needs and support product development, while effectively managing external research partners.


Tips for Design Researcher Skills and Responsibilities on a Resume
1. Design Researcher, Tech Innovate Solutions, Denver, CO
Job Summary:
- Make it easy for cross-departmental managers and team members to connect directly with users and business analytics throughout project and development cycles.
- Plan, structure, schedule, direct, and conduct research to inform projects throughout the company, meeting the requests of project stakeholders and managers.
- Recommend research methods to fulfill the desired outcomes of research requests by Executives, Project Stakeholders, and Managers.
- Organize, document, store, and communicate findings making them available across departmental channels by team members throughout the company.
- Facilitate discussion on the essence of the findings to inform Stakeholders, Project Leads, Managers and Executives on the progress, project status, or fulfillment of the requested research.
- Prioritize and coordinate research requests, keeping team members up-to-date on the status of requests.
- Explore and utilize a variety of research methodologies, understanding the benefits, drawbacks, and appropriate environment for deploying such methodologies.
- Conduct user research at all stages from discovery to validation, using a variety of methods to understand customers and relationship to products
- Approach business and customer problems with research goals in mind
- Understand and apply the right quantitative and qualitative methods given the circumstances
- Actively monitor and analyze research, data, and trends from internal sources, academic institutions, and industry reports to inform and improve approach
- Collaborate to define intent, development, testing, and refinement of prototypes, as well as drive for future design and strategy based on user data and metrics (quant and qual) gathered.
Skills on Resume:
- Stakeholder Communication (Soft Skills)
- Research Coordination (Hard Skills)
- Method Recommendation (Hard Skills)
- Information Management (Hard Skills)
- Facilitation Skills (Soft Skills)
- Project Coordination (Soft Skills)
- Method Selection (Hard Skills)
- Trend Analysis (Hard Skills)
2. Design Researcher, Green Future Labs, Portland, OR
Job Summary:
- Design, scope and plan research activities.
- Conduct research using range of various methods including ethnography, desk research, evaluative testing, and co-creation, etc.
- Plan recruitment for research activities.
- Identify research needs in partnership with service owners.
- Analyze and synthesize findings, identify patterns, key insights, and opportunities from research conducted.
- Framing research findings based on challenge contexts.
- Translate and prioritize opportunities into business needs.
- Adapt and improve the research process based on the organization needs.
- Create compelling, and actionable stories, reports, and presentations.
- Work alongside R&D organization, identifying ways to bring user data into the product development, and influencing decisions about what kinds of products and services build.
- Create high impact research reports and presentations to socialize results
Skills on Resume:
- Research Design (Hard Skills)
- Ethnographic Methodology (Hard Skills)
- Recruitment Planning (Hard Skills)
- Collaborative Analysis (Soft Skills)
- Data Synthesis (Hard Skills)
- Strategic Translation (Soft Skills)
- Process Adaptation (Soft Skills)
- Report and Presentation Creation (Hard Skills)
3. Design Researcher, Urban Design Insights, Austin, TX
Job Summary:
- Create and support insights reports and effectively communicate results to R&D teams and stakeholders
- Contribute to the design, execution, and reporting on usability research at various stages of product development
- Assist in defining user needs, translating those needs into measurable specifications, and completing heuristic reviews of device user-interfaces.
- Support day to day project management for design/market research studies including recruiting participants, tracking project milestones, deliverables and process improvements
- Manage outside research partners from initial RFPs, project management, budgeting and final deliverables
- Support senior members of the team in writing and executing generative and evaluative research protocols, analyzing research insights and data, and writing test reports.
- Moderate interviews with research participants and provide detailed notetaking during usability testing sessions.
- Organize user research studies, including but not limited to lab usability studies and evaluations, ergonomics tests and evaluations, interviews, workshops, and surveys.
- Document and present the research insights, conclusions, and recommendations based on the fieldwork and analysis.
- Conduct primary and secondary research including usability, surveys, remote testing, and customer interviews
Skills on Resume:
- Insights Reporting (Hard Skills)
- Usability Research Design (Hard Skills)
- User Needs Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Project Management (Hard Skills)
- Research Partner Management (Soft Skills)
- Protocol Development (Hard Skills)
- Interview Moderation (Soft Skills)
- Research Documentation and Presentation (Hard Skills)
4. Design Researcher, Creative Research Associates, Raleigh, NC
Job Summary:
- Advocates for Design Research at Fifth Third Bank.
- Contributes to high profile design research initiatives that ignite thinking across both digital and physical experiences and drive toward higher order emotional connections with customers and clients.
- Foster an innovative design culture and promote the discovery of compelling customer insights and observations that lead to innovative solutions for products.
- Advocate design thinking and creative research processes, including co-creation, ethnography, collaborative working sessions, story boarding, and design charrettes.
- Owning and driving tactical UX usability research tools.
- Strive toward compelling and intuitive experiences.
- Provide thought leadership internally and externally related to design research in the context of work streams, processes and industry expertise.
- Review and provide constructive feedback on team and product deliverables, striving for improving product experiences, ultimately increasing value to end users.
- Work closely with product and design partners to prioritize research needs
Skills on Resume:
- Design Research Advocacy (Soft Skills)
- Emotional Engagement Strategy (Hard Skills)
- Innovative Culture Promotion (Soft Skills)
- Design Thinking (Hard Skills)
- UX Usability Tool Management (Hard Skills)
- Experience Optimization (Soft Skills)
- Thought Leadership (Soft Skills)
- Constructive Feedback (Soft Skills)
5. Design Researcher, Sustainable Designs, Minneapolis, MN
Job Summary:
- Develop research plans and methodologies based on an understanding of clients' goals
- Recruit research participants and lead user research in the field to discover insights first-hand through interviews, intercepts, contextual observations, and other creative methods.
- Lead and collaborate in the synthesis process to create captivating research summaries that identify unmet needs and articulate key insights
- Connect insights to design actions by concepting user-centered solutions across brand, digital, product, service, and systemic platforms.
- Utilize deep understanding of design thinking to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and guide clients throughout the entire design process.
- Facilitate and lead collaborative planning sessions, regularly scheduled meetings, ideation sessions and presentations.
- Manage research and strategy account relationships by drafting research and strategy components of new business proposals, collaborating with account management staff to manage and extend client relationships to garner new business.
- Work with product and design partners to ensure recommendations are understood and actionable
Skills on Resume:
- Research Planning (Hard Skills)
- Participant Recruitment (Hard Skills)
- Data Synthesis (Hard Skills)
- Solution Conceptualization (Hard Skills)
- Design Thinking (Hard Skills)
- Facilitation Skills (Soft Skills)
- Client Relationship Management (Soft Skills)
- Cross-functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
6. Design Researcher, Health Design Technologies, Tampa, FL
Job Summary:
- Understand how the business works, and what role research plays
- Amplify and advocate for the value of human-centered design and empathizing with users
- Learn, follow, and contribute to standard operating procedures for research projects
- Define the scope of research projects and see them through to completion
- Work with stakeholders to frame the problem to understand through research
- Add new insights to growing repository and help phase out dated understanding
- Define the research methodology, conduct the research, and analyze the findings
- Create research findings reports and socialize research findings
- Collaborate with researcher operations coordinators on project logistics
- Advocate for and mentor others on research best practices
- Communicate the role of research, the different methods, and the purpose of those methods
- Provide mentorship on what it means to be a customer-centric organization
- Advance the research discipline
- Stay up to date on advances within the field including methods and tools to aid the research process
Skills on Resume:
- Business Understanding (Soft Skills)
- Human-Centered Design Advocacy (Soft Skills)
- Research Project Management (Hard Skills)
- Stakeholder Engagement (Soft Skills)
- Methodology Development (Hard Skills)
- Analytical Reporting (Hard Skills)
- Research Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Continuous Professional Development (Soft Skills)
7. Design Researcher, Community Impact Designers, Nashville, TN
Job Summary:
- In collaboration with the wider multidisciplinary team, support, conduct and manage user research for Sainsbury’s that will inform product roadmaps, concepts and design direction
- Determine measurable and actionable user experience metrics for various digital products with the digital experience management team
- Act as an ambassador of Experience Design research best practice and help the wider Sainsbury’s business to understand the behavioural usage patterns which users will engage in when using devices, as well as anticipate interaction issues
- Design and execute user research that focuses on interaction design outputs that will inform future product development
- Use the research output to communicate how user interface designs will be perceived by end users
- Work closely with insight and research teams and help leverage data to inform design
- Present user insights to project stakeholders at all levels
- Handle the entire quantitative and qualitative research process from analysis of requirements to planning, designing, conducting the researches, analyzing and reporting.
- Conduct researches with player base to gather insights for current and new products.
- Model research insights into specific formats to enhance the understanding of possible features, helping the other teams create new game concepts.
- Present findings and related design/business recommendations and customer insights to business decision makers.
- Identify customer needs to help improve games quality in coordination with other teams, such as Product, Development and Customer Experience by reporting back important community feedback.
- Monitor customer complaints and feedbacks through the researches, tracking community issues and prepare regular reports.
- Keep ahead of industry developments and apply best practices to areas of improvement.
Skills on Resume:
- User Research Management (Hard Skills)
- UX Metrics Development (Hard Skills)
- Research Advocacy (Soft Skills)
- Interaction Design Research (Hard Skills)
- Data-Driven Design Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Stakeholder Presentation (Soft Skills)
- Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Industry Trend Analysis (Hard Skills)
8. Design Researcher, Environmental Design Partners, Sacramento, CA
Job Summary:
- Contribute to the growth of a lean research discipline that spans the product design process from discovery to validation.
- Collaborate on and influence the design of product features and enhancements
- Deliver regular talks and blogs on research findings and the user experience to raise awareness.
- Assist in managing research library that includes customer feedback, personas and journeys that are a toolkit for all teams
- Identifying and communicating high priority questions and opportunities for research to lead team towards strategic opportunities and tactical improvements
- Identifying and communicating appropriate research methodology to address research opportunity
- Supporting recruiting of appropriate participants for research plans and goals
- Conducting research methods and activities to capture qualitative and quantitative data
- Analyzing qualitative and quantitative data to generate insights
- Delivering compelling stories to communicate actionable insights for team and stakeholders
Skills on Resume:
- Lean Research Methodologies (Hard Skills)
- Product Feature Design Influence (Soft Skills)
- Public Speaking and Content Creation (Soft Skills)
- Research Library Management (Hard Skills)
- Strategic Communication (Soft Skills)
- Research Methodology Selection (Hard Skills)
- Participant Recruitment (Soft Skills)
- Data Analysis (Hard Skills)
9. Design Researcher, Smart Urban Design LLC, Boston, MA
Job Summary:
- Design and execute multi-faceted research plans.
- Understand the root cause in user attitudes and behaviors to garner actionable product design insights.
- Analyze and synthesize research findings to inform opportunities for new products, additional features, and related business advantages.
- Present research findings in an engaging and concise manner to key project stakeholders.
- Maintain, and grow, network of do-it-yourself (DIY) and professional research participants.
- Establishing strong relationships with end users, and growing participant outreach capabilities, is critical to research.
- Collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, designers, and engineers
- Contribute to product design through rigorous human-centered exploration and analysis
- Perform literature reviews using research journals and existing relevant information sources
- Participate in defining answerable research questions and developing study protocols
- Use a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods leading to actionable insight
- Collect, analyze, visualize, and prepare research findings for presentation to various audiences
- Comfortable working on digital and physical research initiatives
Skills on Resume:
- Research Design and Execution (Hard Skills)
- Behavioral Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Data Synthesis (Hard Skills)
- Presentation Skills (Soft Skills)
- Network Development (Soft Skills)
- Relationship Building (Soft Skills)
- Multidisciplinary Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Human-Centered Design (Hard Skills)
10. Design Researcher, Future Horizons, Atlanta, GA
Job Summary:
- Participate in the co-design and co-facilitation of workshops with clients and communities
- Participate in all phases of the design process,
- Secondary/desktop research to understand context, benchmark the field, and surface design patterns across solution spaces
- Primary/field research using ethnographic methods such as observation and deep listening
- Research analysis and synthesis to uncover insights and design opportunities
- Collaborative ideation to generate potential design directions for further exploration
- Write engaging narratives to communicate key findings with stakeholders, funders, and the broader community
- Understand and utilise co-design methods, tools, approaches, policies and procedures for client work and internal matters
- Collaborate in a team-based environment with researchers, designers, project leads, and clients
- Participate in internal team-building, contributing to company culture and professional development
- Contribute to internal initiatives such as workflows, procedures, or policies
Skills on Resume:
- Workshop Co-Facilitation (Soft Skills)
- Ethnographic Research (Hard Skills)
- Data Analysis and Synthesis (Hard Skills)
- Collaborative Ideation (Soft Skills)
- Narrative Writing (Hard Skills)
- Co-Design Methodology (Hard Skills)
- Team Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Internal Policy Development (Hard Skills)
11. Design Researcher, Creative Vision Design, Kansas City, MO
Job Summary:
- Work cross-functionally with design, marketing, engineering, marcomms and other related functions
- Plan and execute user research to help product design, engineering and business teams explore new opportunities, evaluate current products, and further unlock the potential of existing services
- Organize and execute research projects, using a variety of lab-based and field research methods
- Develop an informed view of customers and end-users and experiences create, maintain
- Update tools that leverage insights (persona, experience maps, service design blueprints and similar) to be used in product and design discussions
- Execute toward a holistic end to end-user experience approach that extends beyond the product and software use
- Work with people and teams across the company to understand information gaps and needs, and use research to generate useful insights
- Partner with engineers, marketers, and other technical roles to create and share research and test findings facilitate workshops and moderate user research/evaluation
- Communicate research insights in compelling and creative ways
Skills on Resume:
- Cross-Functional Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- User Research Execution (Hard Skills)
- Project Management (Hard Skills)
- Customer Experience Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Tool Development (Hard Skills)
- Workshop Facilitation (Soft Skills)
- Insight Communication (Soft Skills)
- Stakeholder Engagement (Soft Skills)
12. Design Researcher, Next Gen Design Solutions, Omaha, NE
Job Summary:
- Provide a primary role as observer, moderator, or note-taker for user research
- Ethnography-type contextual inquiry in healthcare settings, interviews, co-creation exercises, user preference studies, and usability tests.
- Develop research materials, such as protocols, discussion guides, screeners, and data collection instruments.
- Collecting and processing research data in various formats
- Analyze qualitative research data and translate raw findings into actionable insights
- Producing deliverables suitable for product development.
- Implement a variety of user-centered design methods, such as artifact association, workflow analysis, and persona creation.
- Work on interdisciplinary teams with designers and engineers
- Analyze, translate, and synthesize data, characterize user needs, and inform concepts, and requirements.
- Manage outside agencies for participant recruiting, research facilities, translation, etc.
- Delivering accurate, insightful, and articulate verbal and written presentations to clients.
- Communicate qualitative and quantitative data and insights to designers to be translated into infographics and UX design.
Skills on Resume:
- Ethnographic Research (Hard Skills)
- Data Analysis (Hard Skills)
- Protocol Development (Hard Skills)
- User-Centered Design Methods (Hard Skills)
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration (Soft Skills)
- Stakeholder Management (Soft Skills)
- Insight Communication (Soft Skills)
- Presentation Skills (Soft Skills)