For example, everyone knows that tabbed dialogues using several rows of tabs are hard to use. Even Microsoft, with its fancy usability labs staffed by highly-trained specialists, keeps turning out multirow tabs that are clumsy and confusing to users. The real problem is not the multiple rows of tabs but their behavior, which is difficult for users to interpret. Programmers will protest that the algorithm for what happens when you click on a tab in a back row is both simple and logical, but to the eye it looks like a random reshuffling rather than a straightforward interchange of rows and tabs. Defining the problem as one of visual perception Cthe inability of the user to follow and make sense of what is happening Cestablishes a direction for seeking a workable solution.
Animation solves the problem neatly and cleanly.
That one is solved, but there is no shortage of other software problems out there still waiting for someone with the persistence and vision to invent a good solution. It could be you and your team.