Consider sight lines. For example, from the living spaces or foyer, maybe you, or your guests, don't want to see the bedroom, bathroom, mudroom. This one is becoming less of an issue these days, but I don't like to see the kitchen from where I'm entertaining or reading. And when you come in the front door, what do you see?

Consider furniture placement. Do you always have to weave around furniture to pass through a room, or walk around 3 sides of the bed to get to the bathroom? Don't do like the designer of our house did in 1974 and ensure that the breakfast table has to go right in front of the door into the kitchen.

I suggest you "test" Charles Ross' method by printing out a copy of your plan ... and using colored pencils to draw lines showing the path you'd take as you enter the house from the garage ... the path you'd use to take a load of laundry to/from the laundry/closet ... the path you'd take to take a plate of steaks out to the grill. The colored pencils will let you clearly visualize whether the steps/turns necessary are reasonable.

Laying out furniture is a good idea too -- and measure your current furniture -- don't just guess. When you're talking about tables, assume the chairs are pulled out /left out by children.

In general, you don't want to walk through one room to reach another ... you don't want to be forced to walk around large pieces of furniture to reach rooms ... you want easy access to storage, windows, and doors. Lots of houses that "work" have circular paths, meaning you can walk in a circle, perhaps around a staircase, perhaps through the kitchen -- but the main rooms often have two entrances. Just study plans, and it'll start to make sense to you.

Completely different thought: Start with your land. Do you have an obvious place for the driveway and the garage? What rooms do you want near the garage? What rooms should have easy access to those rooms?

If possible get the floor plan printed out in large format and then have it laminated. It's expensive but then you can draw on it with different fine point dry erase markers to do think like draw traffic flow for different family members at different high traffic times of the day such as getting ready in the morning or dinner time. Doing this may help you find unexpected bottlenecks. You can also draw furniture on it in different configurations to check the size and layout of different rooms to make sure they'll really work. Doing this will allow you to get really messy with the floor plan without making marks that have to be erased leaving messy erasure marks. You can also often spot issues working with a larger format that may not be evident when working with a smaller computer screen.

Consider adjacency relationships and traffic paths. Many home look very spacious until you try to move a 30" circle (human) through them. Then you find put that there has been no thought given to furniture placement and people. Or that the powder room that you need to immediate pay a visit to after a long car trip is all the way across from the family garage and the kid can't hold it one second longer.

Look out for shark or U turns, you could end up with handprints on a wall or door jamb as people ricochet to make the turn.

Movement should be made clear by the room. For example, a foyer is more than a place to enter the building, it should guide you/guest through your arrival and direct you to other places in the house.

Always design the spaces around circulation not the other way around. Let circulation define the plan.

In all too many houses I see here the circulation paths look like the white squares in a crossword puzzle.

and using colored pencils to draw lines showing the path you'd take as you enter the house from the garage

Gotta LOVE those colored pencils! ;)

Well, as a matter of fact, I went to AC Moore today and bought a GIANT pack of colored pencils for my youngest college daughter. Really nice ones in a cool tin.

It's called "circulation space" by some planners ...

http://buildingadvisor.com/design/floor-plans/circulation-key-to-a-successful-floor-plan/

Or work paths, work flow, traffic flow:

Here's one for a kitchen, testing to make sure kids getting snacks don't collide with the cook:
http://rhome410.blogspot.com/2011/10/tko-tuesday-zones-and-workpaths.html

Great comments, thank you all for the ideas.

The trouble with circulation planning is that it squelches modern design cliches that depress resale value when omitted. Kitchen islands, for instance.

"Outta my way!" was how my Mom solved circulation problems!

What are you looking for in terms of flow? I had a thread on this a while back, noting that I probably like more circulation paths than most folks -- others pointed out advantages of certain dead-end rooms for privacy and quiet. So maybe think about your personal preferences first.

Pattern 131 Flow Through Rooms

If you have kids who play Minecraft, you could have them make a rough model of your layout and do a virtual walk though :-)

Thank you all again for the comments. I am summarizing my interpretation so I can more easily bookmark for future reference.

1) Design for the way you live. Circulation should be a key consideration in the design process.

2) Develop a set of personal scenarios such as those listed below. Be specific in the steps you are taking (what you pick up and put down in the process, where you start, where you need to visit, where the scenario ends):

- Getting home for the day and dropping of coat/electronics.

- Checking the mailbox, sorting mail, putting mail away to deal with later.

- Receiving guests into the home.

- Entertaining larger groups.

- Entertaining smaller groups.

- Entertaining overnight guests.

- Charging electronics.

- Watching a movie.

- Morning routine (bed -> bathroom -> kitchen -> closet -> bathroom -> etc.)

- Evening routine

3) Test the scenarios on the floor plan. Laminating and using different color dry erase markers is an option. Another option is to use a 3D home design program for a "virtual" walk through of the plan.

4) When testing use a 30" circle (human size), then add in an element of others that may be on a complementing/competing paths.

5) Include furniture placement (properly sized) on the plan when assessing the flow.

6) Watch that sight lines meet your individual expectations and tastes (what can you see from where).

7) Do not forget to include the outside (land and exterior) in the process of assessing flow.

Keep in mind that "function" must have a good balance with aesthetics and considerations such as budget, regulatory restrictions, site and energy criteria, etc. Strong designs are always a harmonious blending of all of these things, and avoid an over dominance of any single criteria, unless it is truly over-riding over everything else. That is seldom the case.