ICCCM
I sent email to x.org a few days ago asking about revising the ICCCM. No reply yet.
Menus
Menus make a lousy user interface and there are so many ways to make them worse. Perhaps the most familiar problem with menus is that they rarely present all the important information, though it wouldn't matter since such things are rarely read any way. Some people can look at a menu and decide everything on the spot; others need a dialog after making selections. Sometimes there are dependencies which the menu makes clear, but there are for some people vitally important things which are almost never included. Sometimes you even find yourself looking at the wrong menu and other things can make it hard to see menus at all or to differentiate the items. For somethings though, nobody ever needs a menu - everyone expects some things to be a certain way.
Some examples:
Salad... Which dressing would you like? We have ...
The main course. You have a choice of sides listed here.
Does the item contain this substance to which I am deathly allergic?
"Sorry, sir. We stopped serving breakfast at 10:30." "Well, the breakfast menu is still on the board."
Low light provides ambiance - it also hides stuff you don't want to see.
Beer in a bar.