Absolutely. I think that might be (part of the) research. The problem is that a lot of designers start looking for "inspiration" on Pinterest, Behance, Medium, Dribbble, before actually knowing what are their research questions, and the behaviors they want to encourage through the solution. Laura Klein has a fantastic book called "Design Better Products" which shows how to decide your research efforts. Joe Leech also speaks about procedural knowledge vs declarative knowledge https://youtu.be/mxzK4sWfvH8?t=16m48s

I appreciate a lot your replies. Thanks Barry!