A few thoughts on this: 1) 'Pleasing' to the eye also means easy to look at. Keep in mind that if you've got a bunch of fancy colors bouncing around it may look cool at first, but it's going to take a toll on your users eyes after a while. It's a known fact that human eyes work harder when there's lots of colors. Plus the app will end up looking like a 'fisher-price' product or something that looks like it came off the toy self. 2) What I've always ended up doing is simply using the windows-default colors. That way I can't hear any complaints from users about the colors, it's what they've setup themselves. 3) A good trick is to always try to keep objects in a fimiliar place on the screen. Like keep the 'Exit' or 'Save' buttons on the same spot of every form. Sure, it may SEEM a bit boring, but it will make it a lot eaiser for people to learn the app, particularly new employees who haven't ever seen it before. Easy to use, easy to learn, user-defined colors = happy users. Translation: Good project design.