"About Face" by Alan Cooper is far-and-away the best book I've read on interaction design. Don Norman's books are also worth a read (though more difficult to i

"About Face" by Alan Cooper is far-and-away the best book I've read on interaction design. Don Norman's books are also worth a read (though more difficult to immediately apply to creating software). For general visual design "The Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams is an excellent tutorial to teach you how to be, as you say, "not horrible".