There’s always been a stream of thought that believes consumer research should be ignored, or maybe not conducted at all. Without a doubt, the results from consumer research can be wrong, misleading, or worse, make company risk-averse and their products mediocre. I have product successes that went against consumer feedback, and others that based every key decision on it. The question shouldn’t be whether to conduct research or not, it should be what is the best type of research to answer the most important unknowns. Because some research methodologies result in significantly better insights than others.