Hey there, I appreciate your input. I'm glad you read my article because some of the things you mentioned align with many of the widespread biases I had hoped to challenge with my writing.

First, on the note of replicability, and the idea that no two designers could ever turn out the same product: have you ever noticed that almost everything involved with eCommerce UX is mostly the same for just about any site that sells anything-- from product browsing all the way to the checkout process? Have you noticed that the vast majority of login pages have the exact same UX? Nearly every contact form I've ever encountered on a website feels eerily similar. While the visual flair and UI might differ from designer to designer, the core processes (UX) involved in the examples I gave are largely the same. Why? Because they've been tried and tested (according to the scientific method) over time. It seems to me that the ubiquity of similar online experiences across language and cultural barriers points to Successful UX having a *rather* replicable quality. Plus, if you're not using data to drive your UX decisions, you could be severely limiting your outputs. I think you'd find it difficult to argue that Amazon's UX team built their current online shopping experience without any data to support each decision they made.

Next, the false dichotomy you've created between "actual sciences" and "softer disciplines," as you've put it, can prove incredibly harmful. Qualitative research and social sciences have bred some of the most important scientific break-throughs of our lifetime (Take Daniel Kahneman's Nobel-winning work on Behavioral Economics, for example). Furthermore, contrasting "softer disciplines" with "actual sciences" can sometimes promulgate the dangerous elitism that tends to plague academia. In reality, qualitative and quantitative research lie on a spectrum. A particular study can fall anywhere along that spectrum. But ultimately, as long as we're on that spectrum, we're still in the realm of science.

Third, the last sentence of your comment implies that science bears some kind of holy claim to "universal knowledge." I don't think you'll find many scientists (even those who work in "actual sciences" as you put it) who honestly believe their field holds any semblance of universal knowledge. Universal knowledge might be science's goal, but certainly not something any scientific field can reasonably claim at the present moment. For that reason, I'd urge you to reconsider some of your assumptions about the nature of science.

Finally, if the way that most designers you know conduct their user research and user testing is truly unscientific, as you've claimed, please send them this article! I honestly believe our field would benefit greatly from an influx of scientific observation and data-driven problem solving. I never asserted that design is *inherently* scientific; only that *good* design is science.

Thanks for the comment!