Top 10 design pitfalls: No.1 - Lack of Focus

"You need to have an order of importance in your communication. Many designs around us try to say too many things all at the same time. When all the elements have the same weight the reader has nothing to focus on. He gets lost. He gets frustrated and you lose your audience."

Establish what's the most important thing you want to say and make it the most important. Everything else should come later. Besides identifying the most important element, you should create levels of importance for the rest of the elements as well.

Lack of focus: CNET vs. Good visual hierarchy: Apple