Get a Free UX/UI Course in Your Inbox Every Day for 15 Days
By the end of this three-week crash course, you'll have a much better understanding of the tech industry, the design craft, and all the knowledge you need to start building your career.
Starting a design project can be challenging. Everyone wants to be “Dribbble-able,” if you look around. In reality, we often overlook the fact that functionality can have a significant impact on aesthetics (form follows function, remember 🤫?).
Many times, designers have told me that they have been asked to create aesthetically pleasing, innovative, and simple-to-use digital products. So, how do we go about doing that in an efficient manner?
One simple answer to this question would be to learn from real-world use-cases and success stories. In other words, learn from other products and design patterns.
ReallyGoodUX is one of my favorite tools for getting a project started. This website is a gem of great user experience examples from real mobile and web products.
In short, it’s an inspirational library which contains detailed descriptions that include screenshots which are sent out by the community. It includes onboardings, redesigns, tours, NPS Surveys, upsell prompts and other common UX patterns you might encounter when designing for digital products, especially web-apps.
Switching our focus a bit, the next example is the UXArchive - the world’s largest library of mobile user flows, as they claim on their website.
When it comes to designing mobile products, this resource is a must-have. As I explained previously, one of the most interesting aspects of looking at industry examples is that you can learn from what others have tried before you.
UXArchive has flows for a variety of popular apps. You can expect to see common patterns like delete, edit, create, login, and logout, as well as more complex ones like exploring, getting directions, and tagging.
We’re slowly shifting away from static examples towards veeery interactive and eye-catching ones. Awwwards is well known for being a great resource for UI and interaction designers. It’s the first place to look if you want to get some new design ideas from current trends.
They’ve been running competitions since 2009, with the goal of “discovering, recognizing, and promoting the talent of web designers, developers, and companies who create innovative digital experiences.”
Spend some time on this website to get inspired for your next project if you really want to make your idea stand out.
It’s no surprise that good design patterns tend to reoccur. To serve as inspiration, there are a number of websites that curate landing pages with excellent user interfaces. Sitesee is a website gallery that I really like because it has a lot of wonderful examples.
If you’re looking for additional website galleries, check out my previous article, where I’ve given the entire list of websites I frequent for UI inspiration.
Last but not least, you can anytime run a search for UI/UX case studies on Medium — it’s one of my favourite resources. That’s why you’re here, right?
And make sure you subscribe yourself to your favourite publications and content creators. In this way, you’ll always get article that relevant to you.
As a general advice, try to create your own style. You can use the tools above to kickstart your ideas at any time, but don’t forget to express your identity — after all, this could be the reason why someone chose you instead of others to design their product.
Until next time.
