> dismissal of design as a sort of thin veneer, somewhat fake, lipstick-on-good-bacon Part of the problem is that people confuse good design with pretty design

> dismissal of design as a sort of thin veneer, somewhat fake, lipstick-on-good-bacon Part of the problem is that people confuse good design with pretty design (on both sides). The purpose of design is not to improve aesthetics but to improve usability. Aesthetics is an important component of usability, to be sure, but it is not the primary goal. The difficulty is that power-user control/discoverability/aesthetics ends up being a pick-two triangle. And most designs pushing aesthetics also push discoverability, and power users feel shafted with an overly simplistic tool that isn't as productive as their tool which emphasizes control but totally lacks in discoverability and maybe leaves aesthetics to plug-in themes. Good design tries to maximize all three.