Right. The article has a point, but trying to extend it into a full category of design—and then calling it "unpleasant design"—feels more than a bit arbitrary.

Right. The article has a point, but trying to extend it into a full category of design—and then calling it "unpleasant design"—feels more than a bit arbitrary. They just grouped together designs with goals they disliked and called them "unpleasant" under the guise of developing a "critical theory". When you define a category, with a name, you're heavily implying that the categorization you use is important and meaningful and natural, and it's not clear that it is here. They're trying to sneak a particular moral point through as commentary on design—which, thinking about it, isn't all that different from the designs they criticize.