Douglas Bowman, one of the godfathers of web design, on his decision to leave Google after three years:

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

As is now coming up over and over again, data and user research should be one tool to inform design decisions, but should not be the sole factor or measure of design success.