Anti-Patterns: What Never to Do

84 rules extracted from 8 expert video sources and 20+ production design tools. Organized as a mental decision flow so you catch mistakes at the stage where they're cheapest to fix.

The 9-Gate Decision Flow

Walk through at every design stage. Each gate catches a category of mistakes before they compound downstream.

Gate 1 — Before You Touch a Design Tool Did you skip user intent and jump straight to pixels?

Starting with UI elements before mapping user intent is the #1 structural mistake. You'll build something beautiful that nobody can use.

Gate 2 — Color and Theme Are you using color for decoration instead of communication?

Overusing brand color, clashing gradients, and skipping semantic colors make the UI stressful and meaningless. 60-30-10 is the guardrail.

Gate 3 — Typography Do you have more than 4 font sizes or 3 weights?

Excessive type variation destroys hierarchy. If everything is a different size, the eye has no entry point.