User Experiance and Fist Over IP

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't beat them. Just that they might not enjoy the beatings they receive via the web in quite the same way that they enjoy being beaten in the bedroom. haha. I have been on a semi-aggressive run at learning about user-experience and how to design user interfaces. We are developing the first draft of the UI/UX for one of our tools and I thought it prudent to do a little reading on the subject. My current reading list is: Don't make me think by Steve Krug, The design of everyday things by Donald Norman, Emotional Design by Donal Norman, and The web application design handbook by Susan Fowler and Victor Stanwick. I guess the biggest lessons I've learned so far amount to: Test on real people (early and often), Avoid subtly, and try and have the functional bits be self explanatory (1 button per function, etc). but they can kinda be distilled down to "make your tool easy to use, by real people and don't underestimate their intelligence, but give them lots of feedback and put suggestions on how to use your tool in the tool". I have no idea if I'm on the right path, but I have a UI mocked up and I'm gonna build a demo of it, then hopefully grab some "users" and have them test it. Oh, and I'm gonna avoid punching them in the face too much. Other notes:

• No thinking = Self evident, obvious, and self explanatory
• Keep names obvious (not cute)
• Click-able things should look and feel click-able
• People scan, they don't read
• Make the user feel smart
• The web is like driving down the highway and looking at billboards
• Omit needless words
• Try and provide a sense of space, direction and volume
• Satisfy the trunk test (you land on a webpage, much like popping out of a mobsters trunk - where are you and where do you go from here)