[bmelton]

While I agree with the sentiment of your message, I think that the designer loses something when people give him props for a good looking page that doesn't work. "Not working" is a relative term of course, but assumptions should always be based on something, and decisions shouldn't be arbitrary.

I think it would be worth it to the designer to justify the decisions to himself, and let us try to tear them down, as that will further his learning. I'm assuming that by doing these exercises, he's trying to grow, and that puts him in an entirely different situation than with Bowman.

The flip side of that coin is that no design is proven until it's A/B tested. You can have awards for the site's beauty, but if a significantly uglier design increases sales, then you've lost the plot. Keats writes really great poetry. The writing is beautiful. I would no sooner put a Keats poem as my website copy than I would an Ansel Adams photograph as my website's visual design.

This is why website design is harder than people think. This is what separates the good from the great.

The designer is of course under no obligation to us to do this, but it may help himself. Even if he doesn't bother to justify things out loud, sometimes the act of thinking through justification in your head is enough to solidify (or compel change to) a design decision.