User test reality: sharing real experiences

How much user testing was involved in your product in the past 3 months?

Or during/before your last big release? How many users and from where? 

Nearly ~50 designers have told me of how little they talk to users, sometimes as little as every 3-6 months! We all strive for user-centred design, but outside of aspirations, how many users and what kind of users did any clicking/tapping for you?

This isn’t a question intended to shame instead I hope we can share reality and key steps in our prototyping/design/release processes (regardless of what you call it internally).