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> Reading material design from Google https://material.io is a great start. You may not like the UI of it, but the UX and explanations of why things are this way are really interesting.

To add, I've found reading the design documentation of some web and mobile UI libraries to be very enlightening. For example, the colors section of BlueprintJS has helped really narrow down how I use colors: https://blueprintjs.com/docs/#core/colors

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I'd add Apple's Human Interface Guideline document and annual WWDC sessions on user interfaces. Even if you don't use a Mac or iOS device, or even if you hate Apple, taking the time to understand why they think their user interfaces are the best on the planet goes a long way to being able to understand why other companies also think their user interfaces are the best on the planet. The ideal result isn't a happy medium, though; it's whatever suits each platform best, something you only understand when you know what each platform's designers are going for.

Don't look into Microsoft's design documentation though; even they can't decide what their design principles are. The only time they did, and stuck with it to the end, was Windows Phone.

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