Are there any good resources/idioms for visually designing business applications?

Question

I think we're all aware of what "your company's line-of-business software" looks like.

_{(source: glompix.com)}

Are there any resources, rules of advice, or general tricks to visually taming applications like this? Our business's domain is pretty complex, as most are, and our customers demand a great amount of flexibility. Tracking a boatload of fields on each object isn't exactly avoidable.

Besides general advice, I'm also interested in usage and tools specific to WinForms. If there are any examples of (visually) well-designed software of this type, that would help as well.

Answer 1

There is a site that I visit every now and then to be reminded of what not to do: Interface Hall of Shame.

A quick googling turns this up, which goes more into detail of the most common UI mistakes, which boils down to:

1. Non-Standard GUI Controls
   1. Looking Like a GUI Control Without Being One
2. Inconsistency
3. No Perceived Affordance
   1. Tiny Click Targets
4. No Feedback
   1. Out to Lunch Without a Progress Indicator
5. Bad Error Messages
6. Asking for the Same Info Twice
7. No Default Values
8. Dumping Users into the App
9. Not Indicating How Info Will Be Used
10. System-Centric Features

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There are some books that you should read too:

_{(source: mac.com)}

_{(source: mac.com)}

_{(source: mac.com)}

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Mainly, try to use the platform standard widgets, guidelines and rules.