You Must Resist...

...your overwhelming temptation to jump into coding...

A practical note on UI's

I like nokia phones. Interface-wise the are the best. They have a menu-numbering scheme. If you wanna move to Message -> Erase Messages -> All Read on a 6310i for example, you can do it by pressing the left blue button and then typing 01, 8, 1.
Numbering the menu entries of a software program is an excellent trick. I mean ACTUALLY putting numbers in front of the menu captions. It helps communication with customers. It simplifies bug reporting. It even helps you write a great manual with on-screen, visible references.

My boss used to do this in his old-day MSDOS programs. Everybody thought it was a great idea, so we are trying it again.

Drawbacks: if you are in the habbit of reordering menu entries, you are done for.

Everything has already been said

Actually, everything I write here, has already been said. Knowledge is out there... Getting to it is pretty easy. Sticking to it is tricky.
Finding out what the right way to do things is, is readily available. Actually following the advice is the hard part.

Credits

These notes are based mostly on personal experience, but part of the experience has accumulated by reading Erik Sink and Joel Spolsky, amongst others.

Again: Follow Your Own Advice!

I cannot stress this enough: You will find yourself in situations where "doing the right thing" will not be on your mind. Instead, you will want to bend the rules, take the fast path, in general, ignore everything you preach to others and repeat their mistakes. Don't do it.
Keep a paper checklist in front of your monitor with your most common mistakes. Read it daily.

UI guidelines #1

Buttons should look like buttons. Forget about flat buttons, OfficeXP style buttons and buttons with a hover when you roll over them. Buttons should look like buttons. And have a rather long caption on them explaining to the user what is it they do. Like "add new customer" or "delete product". Use Tahoma pt7 if text becomes too large...

Follow your own advice

A very common mistake. You know how everything should be done, you have even written detailed procedures about how everything should be done, and then you fail to follow them. Not your employes, you. Yourself. You keep to your old ways, against all common sence.

Don't do it...