Excellent post by Jakob Nielsen called Top 10 Application Design Mistakes in which he talks about what he feels are the worst mistakes application designers make when designing a front-end for users. It’s echoed in a number of places, with people like Jounalistopia, Jack Schofield and Phillip Lennsen adding some flavour.
The thing about Jakob‘s writing is that I can always relate it to some experience in a project I’ve worked on. So, much so, that I actually forwarded it around the people at work so we can see what lessons we can learn. And it’s not simple things like trying to display a gold chain on a gold background that make the difference, but more fundamental things like Consistency, Perceived Affordance, Not Indicating What Data Will Be Used For that are the more poignant takeaways. Read it for yourself.