Custom user control panel

Hi!,
I’m trying to make a custom control panel but (I’m not talking about changing the wordpress one) with some options for the users.

I managed this in Drupal with no problems. I know that you can control the redirection after the user login but I don’t know if wordpress would work in a similar way.

I think that I should create a page (the control panel page) and start to code in that page controlling the access.

I don’t know how wordpress works when you need to get or save information on forms for the currently logged user neither.

I know that I should be possible but I don’t want to depend on the wordpress default control page because I would like that it looks something different that… well… wordpress.

Could someone guide me to manage this task? I mean, I don’t need codes, I would like to understand how to manage this on the WordPress’ workflow.

Thanks in advanced!

PS: My english stinks
PS2: I tried to post this on “Advanced WordPress” section but the button doesn’t work (I tried it in some browsers).