[chc]

This is kind of what I'm talking about. There is some subset of usability principles that you can "learn and scientifically derive" without actually delving in and becoming a usability expert, but that just makes you the UX equivalent of a cowboy coder hired because his uncle heard he knew computer stuff — you might get stuff done, but you will not be a substitute for an expert unless you actually become one.

[nirvdrum]

Well, on the other hand, I've grown weary of "UX" experts that think that means just making things look pretty. The term HCI shouldn't be foreign to them. Usability studies shouldn't just be grabbing three colleagues and asking them what they think (few ever even get that far). There is a lot of psychology that goes into usability. I'll take someone that studies that over someone that only reads other usability blogs (i.e., an echo chamber) any day of the week.

And again, I contend there are people that do both extraordinarily well. And then there's a ton that think they can, on both sides of the fence.

[nirvdrum]

And I perhaps chose the incorrect term in saying "derive" earlier. I don't think conducting a usability study is going to magically surface a design for you. You need some sort of background to influence your hypotheses. But you can test and measure usability and you don't need to be well-versed in CSS 3 or Photoshop to do so was more my point. And you can draw upon well-established principles to get yourself started.