Objecting to the Objective Researcher
Your research isn't and will never be objective.
Human-centered design frameworks, such as human-computer interaction and user experience and user interface research and design, have proven useful for bringing about better systems, but the focus on the humans whose needs and pain points are a core part of this work has totally eclipsed the researcher.
We want to start with human-computer interaction because the expansion that Don Norman and Stephen Draper evoked, advocating for a greater understanding of the human mirrors our aspirations for the expansion of the researcher.
While our intention is to build competency in other frameworks that our co-creators may be unfamiliar with, we find the researcher to be an apt point of departure for our study. Before diving into theory, we can understand and start from our position. We will use our embodied experiences as a starting point for building better systems.
Summary
While Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and its progeny User Experience (UX)/User Interface (UI) design are part of a larger paradigm we seek to explore in our publications, we will turn to these frameworks to ground our inquiry and highlight a key shortcoming: the researcher’s false sense of objectivity. This belief is foundational yet not unique to these frameworks, seeing this sentiment reappearing across the paradigm. We motivate an expansion of this foundational belief through feminist technoscience. As MIdST LABS’ goal is to build better systems, we propose that researchers abandon their inaccessible “lens of objectivity,” which undermines their work and does harm to their users. Instead, by paying heed to their positionality, researchers and designers are poised to create stronger research by acknowledging their implicit bias and challenging socio-cultural and historical systems that marginalize certain user groups. We offer potential, actionable pathways forward for those in industry and encourage our readers to co-create alongside us and further this expansion.
Background
Human-computer interaction (HCI) seeks to understand (research) and make improvements (design) to the interactions between humans and technology. While rudimentary principles of human-computer interaction were developed before 1986, Don Norman and Stephen Draper’s User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction made several large leaps in the expansion and articulation of the burgeoning field. One of the most important expansions from their work comes with the turn away from “users.”
[T]he authors realized they didn’t like the term “users;” the emphasis demanded a more “human” entity in control. … Norman explained the reason for the evolution away from “user” was to help designers humanize the people whose needs they designed for. 1
This expansion from users to humans served as the foundation for much of user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) research and design, a modern and more fleshed-out adaption of HCI. Just as defined in HCI, UX/UI work is a user-centered research and design process that seeks to understand and make improvements to the interaction between users and technology, but it makes the distinctions between two key areas of focus to achieve this. UX was more closely coupled with the functionality, and UI was more closely coupled with the infrastructure. While the term “user” seems to re-emerge within these research and design frameworks, the understanding of the user was expanded from the traditional definition.
An expanded understanding of the user, more in line with the broader needs of a human, is evident through a heavily relied upon UX/UI tool known as a user persona. While user personas are customizable to the context in which a researcher or designer works, they usually include demographics, such as age, profession, ethnicity, gender, class, etc., as well as behavioral traits and motivations that exceed those captured by the technology’s functionality. These tools aid and facilitate the research and design process because design ideas can be more properly geared to a streamlined understanding of a user.
While UX/UI and HCI centered the embodied, subjective experiences of the humans who used the technology, comparatively less had been said about the researcher. UX/UI tidily dealt with the discipline’s passivity to the researcher by evoking objectivity. According to the discipline, a user-centered approach requires the researcher to inhabit a state of objectivity, to be a conduit through which user needs are surfaced and resolved. UX/UI researchers and designers should be objective in their processes, when conducting research, pulling findings, and surfacing the needs of their users.
Around the same time, feminist technoscience was developing as a framework for inquiry. Feminist technoscience is an expansive framework that seeks to uncover the ways in which socio-cultural factors, including race, gender, and identity, shape and are shaped by technological and scientific research. It explores how power dynamics, social inequalities, and cultural contexts influence both the creation of scientific knowledge and the development of technology, while also examining how these technologies and knowledge systems affect people differently. Historical power structures have excluded certain people from the development of technology and scientific knowledge; this is well documented in the literature across Technology and Science. This includes but is not limited to, higher misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis rates among women2 and people of color3 and bias with facial recognition technology.4
One strategy used by feminist technoscientists to challenge historical systems of oppression is to create knowledge (an understanding of how the world is) from the lived, embodied experiences of those who have been excluded, the ways of knowing which have historically been dismissed as “too soft” or “not rigorous enough.” Sandra Harding’s work was pivotal to the articulation of this principle, through strong objectivity, which suggests that centering the lived experiences of marginalized communities can lead to stronger findings that are more representative of everyone.
With a firm foundation for inquiry, feminist technoscientists turned towards the researcher and their research, spelling out their role and positionality while undertaking this venture.
…[T]here is no such thing as a pure and politically innocent ‘basic’ science that can be transformed into technological applications to be ‘applied’ in ‘good’ or ‘bad’ ways at a comfortable distance from the ‘clean’ hands of the researcher engaged in the former. It is a shared assumption of researchers within the fields of STS and feminist technoscience studies that ‘pure’, ‘basic’ science is as entangled in societal interests, and can be held as politically and ethically accountable, as the technological practices and interventions to which it may give rise.5
Unlike industry professionals who straddle both research and design, academics often do not have control over how their knowledge or research is applied. This led to the central understanding within feminist technoscience that the ethics of creation or knowledge production were complicated and nuanced, irreducible to a simple dichotomy of good or bad.
Karen Barad, a physicist and feminist technoscientist, further drew out this distinction, motivated by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and Bohr’s observer effect in quantum mechanics. In quantum physics, a particle’s properties, such as position and speed, are unknown until a researcher measures them. When a physicist tries to measure one of the properties, such as position, the measurement disturbs other particle properties, say speed, leading to greater uncertainty about this property. In other words, there is no way for the physicist to collect information about a particle’s property without altering some other property of the particle. The mere act of observation influences what is being observed, and it leaves the researcher with no way of understanding how the particle existed before observation.
As the core of quantum physics was predicated on a researcher’s dual observation and influence on the subject, Barad challenges the perceived position of objectivity accessible to any researcher. Barad believes that we make sense of the world through intra-acting agents; agents “do not precede, but rather emerge” through their coming together or disregard for other agents and agencies.6 At the same time, using an expansion from feminist technoscience, Barad believes that these agents do not forget their environment, historic socio-cultural institutions, and experiences; their understanding of this moment is born out of these entangled webs they live in. Put differently, there is no researcher and particle in this interaction; it is just the event in which the two with their histories come together to create a shared understanding of that moment.
By adopting a largely post-positivist view, this treatment stands in stark contrast to human-computer interaction. While the feminist technoscientist evokes an ethical dimension that we will explore in later publications, it complicates the role of the researcher and designer, challenging this separate, objective way of conducting research.
The Impossibility of Objectivity and the Fallout for the Rigor of Research
Viewing HCI and UX/UI frameworks through a feminist epistemological lens lends itself to a glaring shortcoming for the researcher and the rigor of their research.
Researchers and designers, who rely upon a false feeling of objectivity inherent in UX/UI frameworks, stand to do real harm to those they serve; by failing to acknowledge their subjectivity, their research is prone to bias and designs stand to be less impactful.
While much has been said about the human who uses the product, service, or system in HCI and UX/UI frameworks, not much has been said about the researcher or designer. The discipline’s relative passivity to the researcher and designer has led to a belief that HCI and UX/UI researchers and designers can access some state of objectivity. A belief that research can actually be done through a vacating of the self, setting it aside.
The stark reality is that researchers and designers are as much a part of their work as their subjects. As much as the researcher tries to make themself scarce, they keep reappearing. Researchers and designers choose the questions to ask, how to ask them, and who to ask them to. They pull insights and decide how and what is presented. They are no different from the quantum physicists whose mere observation influences the particles they study.
Every decision made while researching and designing carries consequences. Without acknowledging potential areas of bias and instead trying to inhabit an objective state devoid of the bearings of historic, business, and socio-cultural factors, there is the potential for researchers and designers to proliferate the effects of historical institutions of oppression and design systems that do not fully meet the needs of all users. These decisions are inevitably a result of a researcher’s environment and experiences, which are inherently limited. A decision to surface the findings of the majority may lead to design solutions that are inaccessible to the minority. Even the insights that are most apparent to a researcher or designer are likely molded by their experiences and environment. Oversights in research and design may lead to less diverse user groups for testing or limited sample sizes across intersectional identities. None of these decisions are truly objective.
Without inhabiting a state of objectivity, researchers and designers may feel wary of the rigor of their findings.
Without accessing some state of objectivity, how can researchers ensure that their research is rigorous? If research is laced with the researcher’s subjectivity, why conduct research? There will always seemingly be blind spots that cannot be acknowledged and needs will be obscured. At its core, this challenges the very nature of research.
The belief in the objective researcher, which underpins UX/UI work, is not unique, and it has been adopted by various fields of research and design that center the subjective needs of humans. Other disciplines, especially those in human-centered research and design, are not exempt from these concerns. By focusing solely on those they research, researchers and designers are missing critical insights that can inform better design.
Stronger Research through Recognizing the Researcher’s Subjectivity
MIdST LABS sees frameworks such as HCI and UX/UI research and design as useful and effective for designing impactful products, services, or systems. Tacitly, we believe that involving those who intimately experience a problem and leading research from demonstrated human and community needs translates to better products, services, and systems. While these frameworks have proven to be valuable, a researcher’s false sense of objectivity can undermine the research and present challenges to surfacing diverse human needs. We outline possible pathways for expansion through feminist technoscience. Feminist technoscience challenges the underlying values of HCI and UX/UI industry frameworks, and we believe that the integration of feminist technoscience’s understanding of the subjectivity of the researcher can strengthen research and enhance HCI and UX/UI research and design, more broadly.
Potential expansion: By acknowledging their positionality, researchers and designers can surface stronger findings that are more reflective of diverse human needs and, in turn, build better systems.
Feminist technoscience provides pathways forward for the researcher in HCI and UX/UI research and design. Turning to Barad, once more, there is no distinct separation between researcher and user; it is just the event in which the two with their histories, experiences, and identities come together to create a shared understanding of that moment. Whether through meeting with subjects, pulling insights, or surfacing findings, entanglements envelop the moment of intra-action, and meaning comes about through these moments.
In lieu of objectivity, the researcher can acknowledge how their identity, history, experiences, and broader social structures bear upon their research also known as recognizing one’s “positionality.” It is, put differently, reflection upon how our individual and socio-cultural positions shape our understanding of the world and, in turn, impact our work. Whether researchers choose to acknowledge their positionality or not, their positionality affects their work; it is only through understanding their positionality that researchers can begin to challenge socio-cultural and historical systems that exclude and do harm to the very people they aim to help by creating better systems. This adds depth and complexity, going beyond the “simple,” “rote” activity of pulling insights; it requires a more reflective, nuanced approach that takes into account contextual relevancy.
Actionable Pathways for Researchers
Acknowledge and grapple with your role as a subjective researcher. This shift in theory is a huge adjustment. Seek to understand what it means to lean into your subjectivity and how it can impact your work in a variety of ways.
Reflect on your positionality. This is a multi-faceted, iterative practice that requires an understanding of how individual, socio-cultural, and historical systems of power impact your experiences.
Identify and mitigate bias within your work. Through your positionality, identify potential areas of bias and strategies to mitigate this bias.
Tagging assumptions. In the early stages of research, assumptions can be useful to highlight areas in need of further inquiry. Just ensure that assumptions are properly marked with the tag “assumption.” This mode of inquiry may be useful in identifying your areas of bias or misunderstanding.
Understand the context of your work. Understand the role of your company, historically and in this moment.
Challenge systemic biases. Ensure your research utilizes diverse user groups with identities across race and gender and age, etc.
Determine adequate sample sizes. Ensure sample sizes are representative and robust enough to capture the needs of this diverse user group.
Avoid loaded yet ambiguous terms to describe users. While personas use descriptive terms that researchers believe fuel empathy and understanding, certain descriptors, such as “Millennial” or “American” do not lend themselves to better design. These terms are open for multiple interpretations, based on a researcher or designer’s positionality. Instead, opt for terms or phrases that more precisely capture what aspects of them influence the design.
We encourage your insights and further development of these ideas. We would love to add and amend the list to reflect more potential pathways for researchers and designers to produce stronger work. It may be helpful to outline additional problem statements and try to retackle the problem from different angles. We believe these approaches will only strengthen the researcher’s work and center diverse, nuanced insights for design.
Motivating the Need for an Ethics
While a researcher’s subjectivity can greatly strengthen their research, this is not to say inhabiting a subjective mode of research does not lead to bad research. Unlike the feminist technoscientist, we believe that bad research very much does exist, but clearly, our expansion is not a pendulum swing to the other side, in which we pose leading questions or intentionally conceal certain insights. While researcher’s questions will never be free of their subjectivity, we still believe they must adhere to certain ethical responsibilities. Researchers are entangled in messy, interconnected networks of good and bad, so the ethics of research is complicated and nuanced.
Industry design frameworks such as HCI and UX/UI work are in a privileged position. While not exempt from the political and ethical implications of their research, which can be complex or repurposed to back capitalist and business priorities that may not be wholly aligned with user needs, the dual research and design process allows for researchers and designers to have greater ownership over how their work is used. Unlike academia, HCI and UX/UI work are not just research frameworks but powerful modes of design; there is no clear division of labor. In our forthcoming publications, we will push these points further and evoke an ethics for making sense of this, but for now, this offers a strong starting point for further re-interpretation.
We believe the re-framed researcher offers a strong starting point for better research and a further expansion of this work.
Cite this Publication
APA
MIdST LABS. (2025, Jan. 13). Objecting to the Objective Researcher. MIdST LABS. https://midstlabs.substack.com/objecting-to-the-objective-researcher
Chicago
MIdST LABS. "Objecting to the Objective Researcher." MIdST LABS, January 13, 2025. https://midstlabs.substack.com/objecting-to-the-objective-researcher
MLA
MIdST LABS. "Objecting to the Objective Researcher." MIdST LABS, 13 Jan. 2025. https://midstlabs.substack.com/objecting-to-the-objective-researcher
Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2021, June 14). What is Human-Centered Design (HCD)? Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/human-centered-design
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Geiger, H. (2003). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Diagnosis and Treatment: A Review of the Evidence and a Consideration of Causes. In Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care; B. Smedley, A. Stith, & A. Nelson (Eds). (2003). Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. National Academies Press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK220337/
Leslie, D. (2020). Understanding bias in facial recognition technologies: an explainer. The Alan Turing Institute. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4050457
Åsberg, C. & Lykke, N. ( 2010). Feminist technoscience studies. European Journal of Women’s Studies 17(4), 299-305. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1350506810377692
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway. Duke University Press.
We invite you to share your insights and further develop these ideas, especially to meet your contextual needs; we value multiplicities, context, and nuance. Your feedback is a valuable part of this project, and we are excited to collaborate with you.
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