You can't tell me that the major design features of Material design are based on user research. I've seen so many people completely confused by these, even the most basic aspects, like input fields.
That is a fair point. They may be using research now but I guess they didn't use proper UX principles when they started. I've noticed the Google Docs floating action button was semi-replaced with a regular 'new document' section at the top of the page.
