Best User Interface -- Gmail

Following the Worst UI design in Email System, the Best email system I want to discuss here is the Gmail.

Entry interface is clean and intuitive

First of all, we can see that the interface is clean and intuitive. Novice user can perform those basic mailing operations(browse mail, compose mail, read mail) easily with least amount of clicks possible. Expert user can adjust their interface fast without spending too much time on guessing where the option is placed.

Options are organized and categorized in one place

Emails are listed one in a row with the title, a few words as summary, attachment notice and date. In the mailing activities, Re and Fwd is very common. Many email systems treat each of those kind of document as its own entity and list out separately based on the time received. However, to better organize email threads(a list of back and forth email among the same set of users) Gmail automatically put them together for better reference experience. This can not only shorten unnessassary mail list length but also improve the time user has to spend on finding history message. Spam detection is among the best. User rarely see spams and if you label some as spam, the system can pick up the pattern very fast. When it comes to mail composing, it provides you with handful tools and plain/advance composing environment. Some of the notification for careless user(send without the subject/attachment) is also very user friendly. As for organizing, Gmail provides the user with ImportanceDetection, Stars, Labels, Archive options for short term and long term preservation purpose. With Gmail, users can do better and faster personalization than any other email system.

Ads are context related

Even the most tedious thing -- Ad, Gmail put effort to make it less tedious. The ads are content related. It is actually fun to see what kind of ads would pop up with each of your email.

In overall, Gmail constantly adding features to its system. They do not force every user to adopt each new feature but only if they like it. The flexibility is good and so it guarantee a good probability of user experience through both the practical aspect and aesthetic aspect.