Having worked with an excellent UX designer, specifically not a graphic designer, he was great. The difference between him and the other ones I have run into s

Having worked with an excellent UX designer, specifically not a graphic designer, he was great. The difference between him and the other ones I have run into since, he watched users use the product, he would ask users how they might operate low fi paper mock ups, before us developers even saw the design. He tried his best not to project his own preferences and idiosyncrasies on the interaction design. On the other hand, I have not seen this since. Compared to him, in my anecdata 90% are not clueless, but pretty bad.