October 2026 · 9 min read · 32 skills, free

UX Research with Claude: 32 Claude Skills

The pack follows one study end to end: plan it, recruit and consent real people, write the guides, run the sessions, code the transcripts into themes with every quote kept. Then map the journey and end in a decision someone owns.

01What these skills are

One user study, from the research plan to the repository entry, as installable Claude skills

This is Claude for the work around the sessions: writing the plan that says which decision the study informs, getting real people booked and consented, writing guides that do not lead, capturing what happened the same day, coding nine transcripts into themes with every quote kept, and ending in a readout that asks a named person for a decision.

The skills follow one study in order, in seven stages, and each stage hands a named artifact to the next.

The red line: Claude plans, organises and synthesises what real people said and did, with every insight traced to a quote or an observed session. It never invents a participant, a quote, a finding or a metric, and it never stands in for a user.

Quotes, counts and metrics come only from the sessions and responses you collected. Anything missing stays a bracketed placeholder or an open question, and counter-examples stay in.

Problems are rated; people are not. No skill scores, ranks or profiles a participant. Anonymise transcripts and recordings before you paste them.

Each skill is one named method or one artifact, with a fixed output template and the next skill to run. Where a skill fits a Claude surface it says so. Connectors read; you send every message yourself.

The 32 are grouped into the seven stages, and each one gives full value on its own.

Download all 32 skills

One zip: ready-to-install skill zips, readable SKILL.md files, and the sources behind every method. Free, no signup. The same 32 skills live in our open repo, if you would rather read them before you install them.

Download the zip Browse on GitHub

Install in Claude Code

Two lines, and every skill in the pack loads at once.

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install ux-research-pack@polar-bear-skills

Using Claude on the web instead? Download the zip above and upload each skill from its install folder under Customize → Skills.

02The catalog

The 32 skills you get

The set follows one study in seven stages: planning it, recruiting and consenting real people, writing the interview and test guides, running and capturing the sessions, synthesising with every quote kept — then the maps and opportunities, and sharing findings someone can still find next year.

1 · Plan the study

Desk Research Summary

Use when: A study is about to start and nobody has read last year's research
Output: What is already known with source and date, what is stale, open questions, what not to research again

Assumption Map

Use when: Research gets cut and you need to show which bet the team makes without evidence
Output: Assumptions placed by importance and evidence, risky unknowns to research first, what a skipped study puts at risk

UX Research Plan

Use when: You have two weeks and a stakeholder question, and need a plan signed before recruiting
Output: Decision informed, research questions, method and why, sample, timeline, roles, risks, what it will not answer

Synthetic User Check

Use when: Someone says “just ask the AI personas” or pastes synthetic answers into the deck
Output: Each synthetic claim matched to real evidence, what stays a hypothesis, what is rejected, the real study that would answer it

2 · Recruit and consent

Participant Recruitment Brief

Use when: Sessions are next week and nobody owns getting real people booked
Output: Who to hear from in behaviour terms, who wastes a slot, quotas, channels, owner, booking tracker, no-show buffer, fraud checks

Participant Screener

Use when: The screener reads like a quiz, or last round's participants were not who they said
Output: Behaviour and recency questions, hidden qualifying answers, decoys, disqualifiers, quotas, answer key for fit to the brief

Research Data Handling Plan

Use when: Recordings sit in personal drives and nobody knows when they get deleted
Output: Data inventory, minimum to collect, storage, access, anonymise steps, special category flags, deletion dates

Participant Incentive Plan

Use when: You promised a thank-you and finance asks how, when and whether it is taxable
Output: Incentive per study type with amounts left blank, payment method and timing, no-show rules, questions for finance

Participant Database Plan

Use when: The team keeps recruiting the same five friendly customers from a spreadsheet nobody owns
Output: Minimum fields, consent to recontact, contact limits and rest periods, opt-out and deletion, access, contact log

3 · Interview and test guides

User Interview Guide

Use when: Interviews are booked and the question list starts with “would you use”
Output: Research questions mapped to interview questions, story openers, probes, time budget, leading-question check

Usability Test Plan

Use when: The prototype is ready and the script asks “do you like it”
Output: Test goals, task scenarios with success set in advance, think-aloud, moderator script, observer grid, pilot

Unmoderated Test Plan

Use when: You need ten sessions by Friday and nobody can moderate
Output: Self-explaining tasks, success per task, in-tool screener, attention checks, device pilot, what not to test this way

Usability Benchmark Study

Use when: Leadership asks whether the redesign made things better and you have no baseline
Output: Same tasks each round, task success, time, SEQ and SUS defined before data, baseline, re-run date

UX Survey Design

Use when: A “quick survey” is about to go out with questions that start “don't you agree”
Output: Decision served, one construct per question, neutral wording, scales, order, pilot, what it can and cannot say

Diary Study Plan

Use when: The behaviour happens across weeks and nobody can recall it in an interview
Output: Behaviour over time, entry prompts, cadence, length, reminders, drop-off plan, onboarding call, coding plan

4 · Run and capture

Contextual Inquiry Plan

Use when: What users say and what they do look like two different stories
Output: Where and when to observe, apprentice stance, what to watch, note grid, site permissions, debrief per visit

Accessible Research Session Plan

Use when: No disabled person has ever been in a session
Output: Recruiting disabled and older participants, access needs in advance, their own assistive technology, accessible consent, adjustments

AI Feature User Study

Use when: An AI feature ships next quarter and nobody has watched a user meet a wrong answer
Output: Current mental model, expectations, tasks on real inputs, wrong-answer scenarios, trust and correction checks, Wizard of Oz option

Interview Debrief Notes

Use when: You just finished three calls in a row and the notes are a wall of text
Output: Same-day notes per session, verbatim quotes with timestamps, observation vs interpretation, surprises, next questions

5 · Synthesise with quotes kept

Thematic Analysis

Use when: Nine interviews are done and the team wants themes by tomorrow
Output: Codebook, codes with quotes and participant ids, themes with counts, counter-examples, single-voice observations

Usability Test Findings

Use when: The tests “went well” and the notes say four people failed the core task
Output: Did vs said per task, completion with and without help, issues by severity, rainbow sheet, clips to pull

Survey Results Analysis

Use when: The export is in and someone is about to average a Likert scale into a headline
Output: Who answered, cleaning log, frequencies with base sizes, cross-tabs where the base allows, open-text coding, limits

Research Insight Statements

Use when: You have themes and the room still says “so what”
Output: Five to nine “want X but do Y because Z” insights with quotes, counts and confidence, confirmations apart

Evidence Trace Audit

Use when: The deck goes to leadership tomorrow and nobody checked where each sentence came from
Output: Every claim traced to a quote, session or data row, flags for untraced, thin, misquoted or synthetic claims

6 · Maps and opportunities

User Journey Map

Use when: Every team owns one touchpoint and nobody sees where the experience breaks
Output: Stages, actions, thoughts in participants' words, feelings, pain points, each cell tagged to evidence, gaps marked

Jobs to Be Done Statements

Use when: The team describes features and cannot say what progress people are trying to make
Output: Jobs with situation, motivation and outcome, job stories, switching forces, each tied to quotes

Opportunity Solution Tree

Use when: Research produced twenty needs and the team jumps to the first idea
Output: Outcome, opportunities from interviews, ideas per opportunity, assumption test for each, branch to explore next

7 · Share and reuse

Research Readout Deck

Use when: Findings get a nice meeting and then nothing changes
Output: Decision first, three to five insights with quote and count, what we did not learn, recommendations, the decision asked

Research Action Tracker

Use when: Six months later nobody can say what the last study changed
Output: Each recommendation with owner, decision and reason, date, evidence, follow-up check, what changed

Research Repository Entry

Use when: The study is done and its findings will die in a slide deck
Output: Atomic entries (experiment, fact, insight, recommendation), conditions and date, anonymised quote, tags, review date

Research Tagging Taxonomy

Use when: The repository has hundreds of tags and nobody finds anything
Output: A short set of broad tags with definitions, rules for new tags, owner, a label test, review cadence

03How to use it

Pick the workflow that matches your week

Start with the research plan: almost everything downstream reads it. After that, bring the thing that is in front of you.

Plan the study

A stakeholder question and a deadline.

Desk Research Summary
Assumption Map
UX Research Plan

Recruit and consent

Real people to get booked, consented and looked after.

Participant Recruitment Brief
Participant Screener
Informed Consent Form
Research Data Handling Plan
Participant Incentive Plan
Participant Database Plan

Run the interviews

Calls this week, captured the same day.

UX Research Plan
User Interview Guide
Interview Debrief Notes

Synthesise with quotes kept

Nine transcripts waiting to be coded.

Thematic Analysis
Research Insight Statements
Evidence Trace Audit

Test usability

A usability test to plan, then findings to rate by severity.

Usability Test Plan
Usability Test Findings
Research Insight Statements
Evidence Trace Audit

Find what to work on next

The findings are in, and the question is where the experience breaks.

User Journey Map
Jobs to Be Done Statements
Opportunity Solution Tree

End in a decision

Readout on Thursday.

Research Readout Deck
Research Action Tracker
Research Repository Entry
Research Tagging Taxonomy

04Setup guide

Install it in five minutes

In Claude Code · two lines

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install ux-research-pack@polar-bear-skills

In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop · seven clicks

Download the pack, then open Settings
Unzip the pack: its skills folder holds all 32 skills. In Claude, click your name at the bottom left, then Settings.
Download the zip
Open Skills and click Add
Under Customize, choose Skills. Click Add, then Upload a skill.
Drop in a skill file
Drag the skill's file into the box, or click to browse. You can add several at once.
Pick the skill from the pack
In the pack folder, open skills, then the skill you want, and select its SKILL.md — uxr-research-plan is a good first one.
Check the preview and upload
Claude shows the skill's name and what it does. Click Upload.
Make sure it is switched on
The skill opens on its own page. Its toggle should be on.
Try it in a new chat
Type / and the skill's name, then say what you need.

Then try one

Run uxr-research-plan with the stakeholder question and my deadline: [paste them here]

Run uxr-interview-debrief on this morning's calls: [paste your anonymised notes here]

Run uxr-thematic-analysis on these anonymised transcripts: [paste them here]

Anonymise transcripts and recordings before you paste them, and keep participant data out of Claude memory.

Lantern for UX researchers

Turn your research readouts into posts people read

Lantern drafts a week of posts from your notes and call transcripts, in your voice. You review them and publish the ones you like.

100 free credits, about ten posts. No card needed.

Try for free

05Quick reference

Where to start

Your situation	Skill to run
Nobody has read what we already know?	Desk Research Summary
Research got cut and you need to show the risk?	Assumption Map
Two weeks and a stakeholder question?	UX Research Plan
Someone says “just ask the AI personas”?	Synthetic User Check
Nobody owns getting real people booked?	Participant Recruitment Brief
Last round's participants were not who they said?	Participant Screener
An AI notetaker will join the call?	Informed Consent Form
Nobody knows when the recordings get deleted?	Research Data Handling Plan
Your question list starts with “would you use”?	User Interview Guide
The prototype is ready and the script asks “do you like it”?	Usability Test Plan
Leadership asks whether the redesign is better?	Usability Benchmark Study
You just got off three calls in a row?	Interview Debrief Notes
Nine interviews done and themes wanted tomorrow?	Thematic Analysis
The room still says “so what”?	Research Insight Statements
The deck goes to leadership tomorrow?	Evidence Trace Audit
Findings get a nice meeting and nothing changes?	Research Readout Deck

06Standards

The quality bar

Every skill in the pack holds the same standard:

One method, applied properly: the research questions kept apart from interview questions, the screener decoys and answer key, the think-aloud prompts, the severity scale, the codebook passes, the importance and evidence axes — not a generic “gather, analyse, recommend”
Every insight traced: each theme, insight and map cell names the quote, the session or the data row behind it, with counts written as “[n] of [N] participants”. Single voices are listed apart, and counter-examples stay in
No invented numbers: no made-up participants, quotes, scores, sample sizes, incentive amounts or benchmarks. A metric appears only when it came from sessions or responses you collected; anything missing becomes a bracketed placeholder or an open question
Problems are rated, people are not: severity rates usability problems, the screener checks fit to the study brief and a person decides, and no skill scores, ranks or profiles a participant
Participant data handled with care: anonymise transcripts and recordings before pasting, and consent, privacy and data points end with “check with your privacy lead or a qualified adviser” — the skills ask the questions and never answer them as advice
The red line: Claude plans, organises and synthesises what real people said and did, with every insight traced to a quote or an observed session; it never invents a participant, a quote, a finding or a metric, and it never stands in for a user

07FAQ

Questions people ask

What is in the UX Research with Claude pack?

32 Claude skills that follow one user study in seven stages: plan the study, recruit and consent, write the guides, run and capture, synthesise, map opportunities, and share and reuse. Each skill is one named method or one artifact.

How do I install these Claude skills?

In Claude Code, two lines install all 32 at once. In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop, download the zip, open Settings, Skills, Add, and upload the skills you want. Either way it takes about five minutes.

Do I need Claude Code to use them?

No. The skills work in Claude.ai, Claude Desktop and Claude Code. In the app you upload them yourself; in Claude Code one command installs the whole pack.

Do the skills work with ChatGPT or other assistants?

They are built as Claude Skills, and installing them is a Claude feature. Each one is a plain Markdown file, so you can read it and reuse the method elsewhere, but it will not load and trigger by itself outside Claude.

Can Claude stand in for real users?

No. Claude plans, organises and synthesises what real people said and did, with every insight traced to a quote or an observed session. It never invents a participant, a quote, a finding or a metric, and it never stands in for a user.

Is the pack free?

Yes. It is free to use inside your company and in client work, and not for resale. There is no signup: the download and the install command are on this page.

08Who made this

Lantern, by Polar Bear

These skills were written by Polar Bear, a people ops consultancy that runs its own company on Claude. The pack is free, and the same skills are open on GitHub.

Lantern is Polar Bear's content workspace. It turns your notes, documents and call transcripts into drafts for LinkedIn and other networks. You review them and publish the ones you like.