In the same way you can't become a good coder by reading, you can't become a designer by looking. My best trick was to look at a design and then try to recreate

In the same way you can't become a good coder by reading, you can't become a designer by looking. My best trick was to look at a design and then try to recreate it without looking again. Comparing my version with theirs would often show me what i was missing. Also, get "the design of everyday things" to unlearn your bad engineering habits.