No, it is not. If you're Steve Jobs then yes, but otherwise how it looks and how it works are usually two different job functions. People who are good at visual design are not usually knowledgeable enough to do functional design, and people who are good at functional design are not necessarily good at visual design.
Bold statement for something subjective. I think you are confusing design and art (from your own experience or misfortune). The processes of visual design have informed (or formalised) the design as a process in other fields. Artists have a style as a function. Designers (visual or not) have process. No one is great at everything. Mediocre designers are either too visual or not at all (especially the latter), in my experience. Good to great designers grasp both and have breath. Even the ones that don't have art as a function can direct, steer and brief the art of a project (or be resourceful with it.) But you can't have design without process.
Functional design (how it works) and visual design (how it looks) is really two different job functions. You don't need an art degree or even be good in art in order to design the functionalities or even interactions of a product. At the same time, being good in art and designing cool looking UI doesn't make you qualified to design the functionalities or interactions of the product. Not even close.
Both job functions are needed to build a good product. In rare cases one person may be able to do both.
"In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service."
Design is not just one thing or another. It happens at each layer. From deciding how many options you want to present to the user, to how they will be presented. Or deciding how to deal with errors in the backend, versus reporting them in the front end. Design decisions are made the whole way through.
I think this is visible with lots of Apple products because some people complain that they aren’t flexible enough. But reducing configurability is as much a design decision as the colour of the icons. (And sometimes more challenging)
I think we are in agreement. "How it works" is design. "How it looks" is also design. Sometimes, but not usually, one person may be able to do both types of design.
UI (user interface) is a part of UX (user *experience).
Later, they produced Material Design.
The prosecution rests, your honour.
- (not strictly design system s) https://every-layout.dev/ and https://book.inclusive-components.design/
These are by people whose primary goal isn't promotions, keynotes or CVs.
Tailwind also does a decent job with both the framework itself and the commercial UI examples: https://tailwindui.com/
In any case, it contradicts your claim, since all this user research was way, way before UX was a thing.
Honestly I just got the feeling that the phrase UI had become stale and UX was just seen as a way for a new generation to put their mark on the world.
Nothing wrong with that, of course.
The 1985 edition "includes e.g. case studies (useful!), and an extended discussion of Jung's theories of intuition and how they should influence your designs (!!)"
So it is both "Look" and "function". Claiming looks aren't part of it is incorrect.
Yes, it is. If it's about how it looks, then it's illustration, not design.
> how it looks and how it works are usually two different job functions.
Again, no. If you skip functionality in your design, you will end up with an unusable product.
Edit: don't also forget, that after initial perception comes the actual usage.