That wasn't my argument even though I made no argument and said it was a matter of opinion. What is useful to you does not mean it's useful for everyone or even most people.

>Look at Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is well designed as is Google search. In my opinion, Gmail is not a place where I want to look at emails constantly.

> These anti-engineers, pro-pretty design rants on HN are becoming really annoying.

What made you think I was ranting or 'anti-engineer' in my post? Everybody has their job, engineers as well as designers.

Good design is not "pretty" and has very few, mostly indirect links with aesthetics. One of the possible definitions for "good design" could be "don't need user's manual", and "test users took less than x seconds to find and perform tasks A, B and C".

Good design is 'not necessarily' pretty but what I consider pretty is not in the traditional sense. I did say that both Wikipedia and Google search are well designed sites. Good design to me doen't mean it has to look like Apple or Outlook.

For me, even though I know Gmail's interface, I can't look at it for nine hours a day. It feels like I'm working just looking at the site, much less accomplishing the goals I set out to do through mail. For me, good design keeps things simple and obvious until I need something more advanced. I feel like almost everything in Gmail is being thrown at me at once even if that may not necessarily be the case.

This doesn't mean it doesn't work for other people and it doesn't mean you're wrong in what works for you.

As an aside, I have a mother who knows nothing about technology. I had to set up her Gmail account for her and sometimes she forgets her password. She can't even use Gmail on the web. She can only understand Mail.app. I think she is representative of the average user.