> Whether or not you want to communicate "in the clearest way possible" is a choice.
This is far from "clearest way possible", it's not even in the middle. This choice impedes communication which makes is less useful, by your definition.
> But only the author/designer can speak to whether the design was successful in it's aims
I find it difficult to believe that the author's aim was to share a story in such way that's unnecessarily harder to consume, by a large portion of people otherwise interested in their thoughts.
This is far from "clearest way possible", it's not even in the middle. This choice impedes communication which makes is less useful, by your definition.
> But only the author/designer can speak to whether the design was successful in it's aims
I find it difficult to believe that the author's aim was to share a story in such way that's unnecessarily harder to consume, by a large portion of people otherwise interested in their thoughts.