As quoted from the good guys at 37signals,
It’s important to know that research is guesswork. The further out you try to guess, the bigger your margin of error. Like you said, many people do research before they start building their product. They write lots of documents and diagrams and specifications. The problem is, it’s all hypothetical. Until you’ve actually thrown the ball at the wall, you don’t know how it’ll bounce back.
Waitaminute, are we talking “research” in the conventional sense of the word, or are we really talking about “testing”?
If we are talking about research, then I don’t think anyone should even try to guess anything. Why? Because it is not a medium to prove anything. Rather, it is designed to uncover and sort out potentials among the findings.
But anyway, that thought is very compelling. There’s gotta be a connection to the world of advertising and design somewhere. Hmm…