Of course, this assertion is suitable for extensive amounts of discussion but for my purposes, it serves quite well. Fine art prompts experience. Fine art as experience in opposition to design as communication seems a bit abstract and extreme. Although this generalization doesn't work for all forms of design and art, it applies across a broad enough range to be workable. Obviously enough, most visual communication is part content and part experience.
Experience means emotional or visceral response.
In design, we edit content. Editing is an immediate and accessible example of abstraction. To draw parallels between elements and to then organize them in regards to what is most important to least important defines some elements as more important and others as less important. To change the importance of an element changes what it says. And so, the design defines the content.