After designing eleven mobile apps that made everyone miserable, I figured out which clients are worth the headache.

Five years ago, I’d take any mobile UI UX design services project that walked through the door. SaaS dashboards crammed into phone screens, e-commerce apps with seventeen-step checkout flows, “productivity” apps that required a PhD to understand.

I was hungry, optimistic, and completely clueless about what makes mobile projects succeed or fail spectacularly...