25 Jul Conversation IV — Words Before Insight
Interviewer: Research begins in language.
But the language we use is often pre-shaped by business logic:
“Will the segment understand this?”
“Does it scale?”
“Is it clear enough for the report?”
Do you feel that the words we use — to ask, to frame, to report — are becoming thinner?
And what’s the risk, when we flatten language to make it more accessible?
Zulberti: We’re flattening both ends of the research process.
We flatten the asking — because we want participants to interpret the question the same way.
We fear ambiguity, so we remove friction.
The question becomes smooth — but also small.
Then we flatten the reporting — to make the results “actionable.”
We compress responses into bullet points.
We trim quotes.
We remove hesitation.
We smooth the complexity so it fits inside the deliverable.
But research is full of thickness — of hesitation, contradiction, failure to find the words.
When we cut that away, we lose the parts that were most alive.
Interviewer: That reminds me of how writing was shaped by technology — how the printing press, and later the keyboard, pushed for shorter, more legible, more repeatable words.
Do you see something similar happening in UX research — where the tools shape not just the output, but the language we feel allowed to use?
Zulberti: Yes. The tone changes with the tool.
I see it happen in two places.
First: how we ask.
Survey platforms, testing software, AI-assisted templates — they encourage brevity.
We write for the tool, not for the person.
We cut the rhythm of a sentence to fit a box.
We shorten the language until it stops feeling like speech.
We forget that users don’t respond in headlines. They respond in fragments, gestures, contradictions.
Second: how we deliver.
Stakeholders want one-line summaries.
So we write: “Users want clarity.”
But that’s not what she said.
She said: “I wasn’t sure what this was supposed to do, but I clicked here because it felt safer.”
That sentence is full of tone.
Full of decision, uncertainty, instinct.
But it doesn’t fit the format.
So we change it.
And lose it.
Interviewer: It reminds me of Caxton — the first English printer — who adjusted spelling and broke lines oddly just to save space on the page.
He wasn’t shaping language. He was saving paper.
And yet that constraint left a permanent mark.
Do you see the same kind of compression in UX?
Zulberti: Yes — and it often comes from the same impulse: efficiency.
Caxton made language fit the press.
We make experience fit the slide.
And when something doesn’t fit — we rephrase it.
We rewrite the quote so it works in the voice of the brand.
But sometimes the original — the awkward, uncertain, slightly off quote — is where the truth lived.
Because users don’t speak like copywriters.
They speak like people trying to make sense of something in real time.
When we clean that up, we don’t just improve clarity — we erase feeling.
And just like Caxton’s constraints left their mark, ours do too.
Only ours aren’t visible on the page.
They’re felt in the absence of what was once there.
Interviewer: Edward Tufte wrote about PowerPoint as a technology that compresses thought.
That its format creates a “cognitive style” — one that favors clarity over complexity.
Do you think the way we present research is shaped by similar pressures?
Zulberti: Completely.
Tufte saw that PowerPoint didn’t just show information — it changed what could be said.
It gave us a grammar of presentation: headline, bullet, takeaway.
That’s not how people speak. That’s not how meaning appears.
But we adapt to the grammar.
We shorten.
We round off the edges.
And over time, we stop trusting the language we heard — and start trusting the one we can fit in the deck.
The problem isn’t just clarity.
It’s that we begin to forget that the original language was more textured, more difficult, more human.
And if we can’t present that language, we risk not hearing it at all.
Interviewer: You’ve described how much gets lost — and how that loss begins before the report is even written.
But still, you choose to carry what didn’t fit.
Why?
Zulberti: Because those are the parts that work on me.
They stay.
Even when they don’t have a place in the document.
A half-finished sentence.
A gesture that made me pause.
A contradiction that never got resolved.
I write them down.
Sometimes I share them.
Sometimes I just hold them.
Not because they explain anything.
But because they remind me that research isn’t clean.
And the parts that don’t fit the format —
those are often the parts that changed how I see.
Interviewer: You’ve shown how language is compressed — in the way we ask, the way we report, the way we adapt to formats.
Have you ever needed to change your language to be heard — and in doing so, felt that something essential was lost?
Zulberti: I believe this happens often in organisations where UX maturity is still developing.
You adjust your language — not to deceive, but to be understood.
You speak in outcomes instead of tensions, translate ambiguity into action points.
But when you simplify the complexity too far, you risk losing the emotional texture of the experience — and that’s often where the real meaning lives.
Position in the Series
This article is where the conversation turns sharp: how language reshapes research, how insight becomes packaging.
It continues the thread of mediation, now through writing, formatting, and technological constraints.
It also begins the concern with loss — picked up fully in the next article on forgetting and residue.