Don’t confuse research with validation. If they tested the iMac design in focus groups and surveys I’m sure it would have done poorly. I think those kinds of design validation exercises tend to dilute products and confidence. But if they took the time to study the core Mac user, what their interests and tastes were, I think they could feel confident that something bold was the right fit, especially adding in the context that at that time, Apple was tine, with a hard core following of mainly creatives. Compound that with being on the verge of going out of business and needing something that would capture mind share as much as market share, and it was the right decision… design research doesn’t (and shouldn’t) need to be a 6 month, multi-million dollar exercise. It can be a couple of weeks of guerrilla interviews, intercepts, and trend scrapes… and of course it is easy to justify the iMac in hind sight. It also takes a leader who believes in the brand to make decisions like that.