Andrew Maier writes on uxbooth.com on the conundrum of user-centred design: willful ignorance to the benefits of design research.
“Interestingly, the conundrum always starts the same way: those who budget a project’s time, materials, etc. believe that incorporating user research into the design process could potentially add to the project’s overall scope. These stakeholders, project managers, what have you are concerned with making things work for themselves or their superiors within a specific time frame.
For those uninitiated to anthropology, ethnography, sociology, or any kind of research-driven science that focuses on people, adding users’ opinions, processes, and practices to the mix before creating an initial design seems like a step in the wrong direction. Aren’t we, as the interaction designers, supposed to be providing the “magic” behind the interface?”