Writing · Published
Research Is Also Interface Design
Every analysis creates an interface between evidence and attention, whether or not we call it a product.
A table, a figure, a notebook, and a literature review all decide what is easy to see. They organize attention. In that limited but important sense, research is also interface design.
What becomes visible
The structure of an artifact signals what counts: the headline metric, the edge case placed in a footnote, the uncertainty interval that disappears in a summary.
Treating these choices as design choices does not make the research less rigorous. It makes another layer of judgment available for critique.