25 Jul Conversation III — The Method is the Medium
Interviewer: In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.”
He wasn’t talking about UX research — but he could have been.
Most teams treat methods as neutral tools: surveys, interviews, usability tests.
But what if the method is not neutral?
What if it’s shaping the very knowledge we believe we’re collecting?
Do you think of research methods as media — and if so, how does that change how you work?
Zulberti: Yes — I think of methods as media. And as materials.
I can’t separate the method from the knowledge it produces — just like I can’t separate the texture of clay from the form of the vessel.
A usability test, for example, isn’t just a tool — it’s a frame. A container. A boundary.
It asks the participant to perform a certain kind of knowledge, within a certain kind of time.
A survey reduces complexity. An interview stretches it.
A workshop may open space — but only for those who know how to move inside it.
Each method invites a certain shape of experience — and leaves other shapes out.
That’s not a flaw. But we need to be honest about it.
Interviewer: So a method doesn’t just collect information — it preconditions it.
Which means that before a participant even speaks, the shape of their response is already affected.
What happens when that shaping goes unnoticed?
Zulberti: We start to believe that the method tells the truth.
We forget what it’s not showing.
A survey gives us reach, but not depth.
A usability test reveals friction, but maybe not meaning.
A journey map tells a story, but maybe not the one the user would tell.
And beyond the tools — there’s the context.
Time. Budget. Expectation.
Most projects don’t allow us to triangulate.
We collect one source and call it insight.
And then we frame that partial view in a report that makes it seem whole.
But the form of the method shapes what becomes visible — and what stays hidden.
So I try to ask:
What kind of knowledge does this method allow?
And what kind does it deny?
Interviewer: You’ve said that methods are materials — but you’re part of that material too.
Does your presence change what the participant says?
Zulberti: Always.
The participant doesn’t speak into the tool. They speak into the room.
Into the conditions.
If I’m rushed, they feel it.
If I’m distracted, they adapt.
If I’m still, they open.
That’s not passive. That’s part of the method.
Presence is medium.
I don’t just receive the story — I become part of its surface.
And the texture of that surface changes what can be said.
Interviewer: That reminds me of The Conversation — the film where Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert.
He thinks he’s being objective. But the more he listens, the more he distorts what he hears.
Do you feel that risk — that the researcher becomes part of the distortion?
Zulberti: Yes. And I think that’s honest.
There’s no clean line between listening and shaping.
Even the best-recorded session contains the echo of the room.
Of how the question was asked. Of who was asking.
That’s the tension: we want to listen cleanly, but our presence is part of the recording.
It’s not contamination — it’s condition.
I try to stay attuned to that.
To listen not just for what’s said, but for what the shape of the method makes possible.
Interviewer: So when you return to the team, with all that texture — how do you carry it across?
Most teams want clarity. Action. Direction.
How do you bring something shaped by atmosphere into a space shaped by decisions?
Zulberti: I’ve learned to treat that moment — the translation back to the team — as a medium in itself.
It’s not about writing a summary.
It’s about curating the experience.
Sometimes I bring in a clip that doesn’t answer the research question — but it shifts the room.
Sometimes I describe the tone of the session. The silence. The weight.
I don’t want to strip the research of its strangeness just to make it legible.
Because once it’s flattened, you can’t get it back.
So I try to keep something unresolved.
Not to confuse — but to let others feel what I felt.
To let the ambiguity live a little longer.
Interviewer: You’ve said research isn’t extraction — it’s shaping. Framing. Holding.
But once the session is over, and the design moves forward — what remains?
Zulberti: Sometimes just a trace.
Not a quote. Not a finding.
A shift. A new attention.
Someone on the team slows down.
Asks differently.
Listens a little longer.
And maybe they don’t know why.
But it’s because of what we held in the room.
Not everything survives translation.
But some things still leave a mark.
Interviewer: You’ve described how the method — like the tool, the format, even the researcher’s presence — shapes what is seen, and what’s left out.
Has there been a time when your own familiarity with a tool began to limit what you were able to observe or understand?
Zulberti: As my personal reflection, I believe deep expertise with a research tool can narrow the field of inquiry.
When you’re fluent in one platform or method, you may begin to frame questions and design sessions that suit the tool — rather than the complexity of the problem.
That’s when research risks becoming confirmation.
I try to stay alert to that moment, when the method starts speaking louder than the participant.
Position in the Series
Here the series turns toward tools and methods, revealing how they shape not just research outputs, but its conditions.
It critiques the invisibility of the medium — reminding us that all clarity comes with a cost.
The discussion prepares the ground for the fourth article, where language itself becomes the site of compression.