15 Oct Get to Know Senior User Experience Researcher David Zax
David Zax, our Senior User Experience Researcher, brings a unique mix of journalism, playwriting, and research expertise to Fluent. In this interview, he shares insights from his career, how he tackles challenges, and what excites him most about his role.
1) Tell us a bit about your career journey. What led you from a successful career in business journalism to becoming a user experience researcher?
A journalist is two things: a researcher and a writer. Actually, they are three things: a researcher, a writer, and lowly paid. About 10 years ago, I completed a MFA in playwriting and began to identify as a different sort of writer in my creative practice. What was left over was that I had research skills and no money. That’s how I became a user experience researcher.
2) What’s a unique challenge you’ve faced in your career thus far, and how did you overcome it?
I have had some challenges. I had lectures on ethnography and statistics in my journalism school classes, for instance, and being a journalist inherently makes you practiced in interviews and lit reviews. However, I found that there can sometimes be a bit of a cultural disconnect between my approach and that of some of my colleagues and clients. I’ve overcome this by just being more aware of it, learning to “speak social science,” and taking the temperature of my client’s methodological bent before I get into research with them. I love scrappy, improvisational research (I began my UX career as an ethnographer), but if the client needs rigid uniformity to the data, I, of course, accommodate that.
3) With a diverse background in journalism and research, what skills have you brought from your career as a journalist into your work as a researcher?
I think more than anything, deep listening. My favorite thing to do in an interview, whether journalistic or research in nature, is to “probe” (in researcher parlance) or simply “ask follow-up questions” (in normal journalistic human speech). Wait, the person you spoke to just said something surprising — you felt it, your intuition says there’s something there, and now it’s time to go off-road from your discussion guide and see what you can dig up. That’s where the richest stuff — the most moving stories, the deepest insights — are mined.
4) What brings you joy outside of work?
5) What are you most excited about in your new role at Fluent Research?
I’m excited to focus on projects that increase wellness for children and families, just as I’m about to start a family of my own. I’m dying to work for Sesame Workshop and fulfill my lifelong dream of interviewing Big Bird.
6) What advice would you give to somebody just starting out their career in user research?
Try not to pigeonhole yourself in terms of methods. I thought of myself as a “qual guy,” but some of the most enjoyment I’ve gotten out of research studies in the last few years has been learning quantitative methods, and even doing a self-directed Codecademy course in Python. Don’t be scared of numbers! And ChatGPT can talk you through any methodological or spreadsheet issue you face.
Connect with David on LinkedIn!