I don’t understand why people often think research smoothers creativity. In my experience, one gets great ideas and flashes of insight from observations and data. And any truly great idea will survive well run research. Design is art that learns from the world it inhabits. Design is art that serves those who experiences it. Art is the eye of the artist revealed to the viewer, but design is the viewer (and user) being seen by the designer, then served what is right for that person. It can stretch the user or comfort them. It can empower them or it can given them a way to escape life’s hassles like game design does. But the difference between art and design is who is at the center of the choices, the maker or the consumer (user, player.) and to keep that final audience front and center, it takes good research. And those constraints are what permits innovation, if on is willing to truly listen and observe. Anything else is self-serving: that is not bad, but it is also not design.

If much UX work is boring (and I cannot argue that it isn’t, site after it’s looking like Wordpess templates, and apps that don’t need to following suit,) it has more to do with the commercial pressures that make risk taking difficult and business folks with myopic vision who are unwilling to do something different. I’ve seen research ignored because the insight was too alarming to people who think they know what an app or piece of software is supposed to be. Research is our partner in giving conservative minds courage, not some gatekeeper of the status quo.