Julie Zhuo discusses some characteristics of bad designers in 7 Reasons to No-Hire a Product Designer (Part I). This point stood out for me:

Look for hints of random decision making. Good designers do not do things randomly, or for the hell of it, or just because it seemed cool.

This ties in well with Rebekah Cox’s definition of Design in her Web2.0 Expo Presentation:

Design is a set of decisions about a product. It’s not an interface or an aesthetic, it’s not a brand or a color. Design is the actual decisions.

The thing is, if you don’t follow a rigorous design process that identifies user needs, explores different solutions, iterates collaboratively, etc., you’re still making decisions about the product. You’re still designing. But your sins of omission will result in implicit, subconscious decisions that have a high likelihood of being wrong. This is why what Julie calls intentionality in her post is so important. Design decisions should always be deliberate and defendable, not random and accidental.