That's because you had a very limited definition of what design is. Design is not just how it looks, it is much more about how it works (and in a highly visual media like the web, how it looks is of course a big part of that).
Edit to add some nuance: I didn't mean to take this out on you personally. Your limited definition of what "design" as "visual design" is actually fairly pervasive these days and as a (non visual) designer this bothers me to no end. I'm blaming the use of design as a noun for this. People want to have something that is "design", whatever that means. Design, however, is also a verb. It is the process of shaping a product to fit its users' needs. For software, that means figuring out what it should and shouldn't do, how it should do it, how to organise information, what language (visual and verbal) to use and testing, testing, testing. To do this right, you need more than just a talented artist that can make a pretty picture.
Edit to add some nuance: I didn't mean to take this out on you personally. Your limited definition of what "design" as "visual design" is actually fairly pervasive these days and as a (non visual) designer this bothers me to no end. I'm blaming the use of design as a noun for this. People want to have something that is "design", whatever that means. Design, however, is also a verb. It is the process of shaping a product to fit its users' needs. For software, that means figuring out what it should and shouldn't do, how it should do it, how to organise information, what language (visual and verbal) to use and testing, testing, testing. To do this right, you need more than just a talented artist that can make a pretty picture.