Hey Hive account@brutalisti ! It's great to have people to discuss with people about UX ✨
I don't really agree with you. I agree that when the UI/visual design is really excellent, our eyes are happy and you don't really pay attention to the UX... BUT only in the short term, because users who struggle with your app's flow will surely don't use your app again. Products (app or website) that can help gain time or money because of their excellent UX, in the end, users will use it, even if the UI/visual design is not perfect. The UI is an accessory, it let the UX be way better! But if you don't have a good UX at the beginning, the UI is kind of useless... Well beautiful to see, but not beautiful to use.

Another reason why we should not always believe users, when they say a website or product is great, you should also observe how they use it.

It is really funny because your sentence contradicts itself 🌸. First of all, if you design a product, you should always trust the users, because you design products for them and with them. As you said, we have to observe how they use it, so if they say that they struggle with the flow, we have to trust them, right?