What to Consider When Hiring a UX Research Firm

Hire the firm whose methods fit your decision, whose senior people will be in the room with your customers, and who will tell you when the findings say your brief is wrong.

Every research firm will say it delivers actionable insight. These five questions show you which ones can.

1. "What will you do if the findings contradict our brief?"

A strong firm will name a time it happened and what changed as a result. A weak one will reassure you that it won't happen. It happens often, and it's usually where the value is.

2. "Who will actually be with our customers?"

Research quality depends on the person asking the questions and noticing what isn't said. Make sure the senior people in the pitch are the people running the sessions.

3. "Who will you recruit, and who will you deliberately include?"

Listen for people who are hard to reach or unhappy with you, not just your fans. That's where the useful answers are.

4. "How will you choose the method?"

The right answer starts with your question, not their favourite technique. Interviews, observation, diary studies, testing and surveys each answer different things. A good firm mixes them to get both the what and the why.

5. "What will we have at the end, and who will use it?"

Look for outputs tied to a decision: a tested prototype, a service blueprint, a prioritised list of changes. Not just a report.

How we work

Our research is led by Jodie Moule, a qualified psychologist with a Masters of Applied Psychology and the author of Killer UX Design. A principal is on every project, brief to delivery.

Last financial year we ran research across retail, energy, financial services, government, construction and end-of-life services, including work that will shape programs ahead of the 2032 Olympics.

The method is designed around the question and the customer, so it's different every time. For Heidelberg Materials that meant call centre research and one-to-one customer interviews, cross-referenced against a systems and process audit, plus ride-alongs with sales and delivery teams across three states, service blueprinting and customer segmentation. For Sydney Metro's Pitt Street station bid it meant journey mapping and virtual reality testing of prototypes before anything got built.

Who is the best UX research agency in Sydney and Australia?

There is no single best, and any firm that claims the title is selling. The right partner is the one whose methods suit your decision and whose sector experience suits your constraints. Behavjōr is a Sydney behavioural research and design consultancy. Judge us the way we have suggested you judge anyone: read the case studies, or our behavioural research and strategy practice.

For the costs of getting this wrong, read the hidden costs of choosing the wrong UX research partner.

Related: Behavioural research and strategy and Our case studies.