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Designers don't have to use the site, so they probably just try and make it look pretty.

But usability should trump aesthetics. If you're designing a blog, you should design it to be readable. That means a decent font size, no distracting graphics and definitely nothing that moves/blinks/flashes. (I'm biased, I've always preferred reading sites that are "plain." Just text and images only if they actually add value. Some color is ok too)

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I'm not sure how someone can claim to be a web site designer if they neglect the basics of usability in favor of making the font stylishly tiny. It's like claiming to be a chef but overcooking everything.

I looked at the source code for that page, and it switches from "12px" font size to a smaller version of that about halfway through. Aside from the issue of specifying font sizes in pixels, why would you suddenly start adding <small> tags to already-small text?

Most blogs probably aren't designed by professionals. Likely Joe Blogger's friend who thinks they have an eye for style and can whip up a wordpress theme.

The small tags are part of the original article that he scraped. Either way, it's odd, the font size get progressively smaller for each paragraph.

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