March 2025
Taste is important.
Taste is knowing what good looks like.
“Someone who has taste in certain things, can find good things, create good things and point out how something needs to change to make it good.”
For a long time I thought that taste is some god-given trait. But taste can be developed! Here’s a thread on developing taste by the CEO of Linear. Speaking of Linear…
If you want to design beautiful software, use beautiful software.
Software I like and use for inspiration:
- Linear
- ChatGPT
- Vercel
- lu.ma
- Notion (sometimes)
- maybe Cal.com?
- some people say: Airbnb, Superhuman, Arc Browser
Never start from a blank canvas.
When designing things, especially user interfaces, do not start from zero.
At the level that I’m usually working on, everything I’m “designing” has been designed before. Everything I need has already been done before. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
Use pre-made components like shadcn, or at least search libraries like Mobbin to find real-world examples of what you’re trying to create.
It’s usually better to spend more time upfront doing research and finding examples, than to jump straight in.
To get better at actually designing software…
…recreate the beautiful user interfaces you find.
Replicate them, understand them, tweak them.
That’s the best way to learn.
To get a quicker understanding of the “rules” that apply, books and guides can be helpful, e.g.
- Practical UI
- Refactoring UI (especially when coming from a technical / web dev background)