In the limit, design is a complete definition of how a thing (product, service, picture, story) should be- with due consideration given to all concerns (technic

In the limit, design is a complete definition of how a thing (product, service, picture, story) should be- with due consideration given to all concerns (technical, practical, emotional, environmental, supernatural, whatever). If you're solving problems, you're already designing solutions. Now at the moment, (for the programmers among us) when you're solving a problem you may only be considering some subset of the relevant concerns. Therefore, the very specific question of should you learn visual design can be reduced to: do you want your solutions to consider a larger subset of relevant concerns and be a better approximation of the best possible solution (product, pitch, voodoo doll, etc).