Teaching user experience (UX) design has increasingly become a virtual process. This is particularly true for instructors running online synchronic courses due to the impact of the recent pandemic. A large portion of user research study, which is the backbone of UX design, is now undertaken using non-contact modes and conducted through online tools and methods to facilitate students learning this critical piece of UX design. User research study is essential to UX design. It leads to creativity and inspires design thinking. To fulfil their coursework on user research study, students explored online resources and utilised remote user research tools, such as online card sorting for user-centred information architecture and a web-based eye tracking machine learning tool for information hierarchy. Even though it lacked physical human interaction, using online user research tools in our experience was found to be accessible and effective and produced satisfactory learning results. This paper shares the experience of the online synchronic teaching of a UX design course at a state university and calls for an open discussion for utilising online tools in UX design education, which hold