You are not your user. The faster you accept this, the better your product will be.
1Observational Research
Don't listen to what users say they like. Watch what they do. If a user says 'It's great!' but takes 10 minutes to find the checkout button, the design has failed.
2Mental Models
Users bring their past experiences to your app. If they expect a 'search bar' to be at the top right because every other app does it, and you put it at the bottom, you've broken their mental model.
3Iterative Testing
Don't wait for the final product. Test the low-fidelity wireframes. It's much cheaper to change a box in a drawing than to change a feature in a finished codebase.
