> Design is about communication. That's all it's ever been and all it ever will be about (a user interface is a communication to the user how to interact with y

> Design is about communication. That's all it's ever been and all it ever will be about (a user interface is a communication to the user how to interact with your product/idea). Yes, design is about communication. But communication and interaction don't happen in a vacuum. They are always conducted via some medium. On the web, that "medium" is generally visual graphics, copy, and interactive behavior. But it's not enough for a designer to be proficient with just the "communication" aspect of design. A design (or more likely, a design team) must possess actual, specific competencies in those areas. That is: Someone needs to be a good copywriter. Someone needs to be a good front-end developer. Someone needs to be good at rendering things visually (e.g. choosing colors, laying out elements, creating iconography). The truth is there are very, very few people who are skilled in all of these areas. As a result, I think there is a need for visual designers who are extremely skilled with the tools of the web design trade (for now, that's Photoshop and Illustrator) AND who possess very strong abilities in visual design, but who do not necessarily have the responsibility for conceptualizing the interactive or other aspects of the application. So while I do agree that there are a large number of projects that have suffered because someone just took an idea, dumped it into a graphic designer's lap and said "here, make me something like this that looks pretty" -- I think it is equally wrong to expect people with those very specific graphic design skills to be able to step up and take real responsibility for the conceptual design of the project. I have a friend who is doing interaction design, and I see this as a more auspicious trend in the design profession. An interaction designer is someone who understands all of the disciplines that go into an application -- even if they are not proficient in them individually. The interaction designer then works with people who are skilled in their disciplines and orchestrates them into what is hopefully a better user experience. Anyhow, hopefully this discombobulated rant makes some degree of sense.