People argue all sorts of things here. People argue that building large specs so as to get approval of the grand poobahs to fund the project to build the thing is creating value. But the easy rule of thumb is "If you do more X, does a customer receive more value?"

Another way to look at it: If I put the customer at the bottom of a well and the only way to communicate is by cranking notes up and down in a bucket, does turning the crank constitute a value increase? Mainly I think it's focusing on the wrong thing. Why is the customer in the well? Maybe we should let them out. Maybe if we have a question about how they work or what's good for them, we should visit them and study them as they work and then maybe ask them a question or two. And then, most importantly, ship something and see if it really does make things better.

So no, even in that narrow and unfortunate case, that is not creating value. It is at best necessary waste. Building the thing and giving to them, if it turns out to be valuable, is creating value (probably with some waste mixed in). The fact that communication is through a constrained and stilted channel is just a sign there's pure waste in the necessary waste that we can try to remove.