Professor Ullman's research has centered on understanding how individual and teams solve design problems. This research has focused on the study of how different design methodologies support the design process and how to improve these methods. Further, research has included an effort to support sketch capture and decomposition to aid in the conceptual phase of design. These efforts have been investigated with other researchers from computer science, manufacturing engineering, business and psychology.
Current focus is on the support of decision making by teams of designers, developing metrics for assessing the design process and the use of Tagunchi's methods in the early stages of the design process and in decision making.
He is an active member of the research community. In 1986, reacting to a
lack of mechanisms for reporting on design research, he founded the ASME Design
Theory and Methodology Committee.