Who to learn from

Your feed has eleven threads this week on the only design prompt you'll ever need. They're all confident and all well written, and a couple of them disagree with each other. You have one free evening. Which one deserves it?

What you read, you become

The things you take in shape how you think, slowly and without asking permission. Read a hundred posts that say every screen needs a gradient and one day you'll reach for a gradient without deciding to.

That's always been true. What's new is that a model can now make anyone sound like an expert. Fluent writing used to be a rough sign that someone had spent years on a subject. Today it's free. So choosing whose ideas you let in has become a skill of its own.

The test: proof of work

There's one question that cuts through almost all of it: have they shipped something people use or admire? A product with real users, a library other projects depend on, a typeface millions of people read every day. Call it proof of work, something a person has made that others rely on. It's the best reason there is to trust their advice.

If you want to learn type design, read the person who drew a typeface you see on every phone, not the most-shared thread about font pairing. If you want to learn interface motion, it helps to know that Emil Kowalski's advice on it comes from building Sonner and Vaul, a toast library and a drawer that a great many apps run on.

There's a second, weaker test for when you can't see the work: do they work somewhere that's famously hard to get into? Getting there took proof most people never see. If someone passes neither test, they may still be fun to read. It's probably just good posting.

Followers measure posting

Followers, likes and viral threads measure one thing well: how good someone is at posting. That's a real skill, and some people have it alongside a lot of shipped work. But building and posting are different skills, and it's easy to mistake one for the other when the posting is very good.

The invisible makers

Many of the best builders never post at all. They're busy. The people who designed your phone's settings screens or your favourite app's onboarding may never write a word about it.

You can still learn from them, because their work is public even when they aren't. Use what they made closely, as if you'd been asked to explain it. The next time you open your phone's settings, try naming three decisions someone made: why the search sits where it does, why that toggle doesn't ask for confirmation, why the list is grouped the way it is. Putting a decision into words is how you take it in.

Find more, keep few

Once you've found one person who passes the test, look at who they follow, quote and admire. Good people tend to point at other good people, so this narrows the search fast.

Then keep the list short, five to ten names. They don't all have to be designers. A sushi chef who has spent thirty years on one craft has a lot to teach about restraint. Finally, let your agent help you take their ideas in, always with the sources attached so you can check what it tells you.

I want to learn interface animation from people with proof of work.
List eight people who have shipped something widely used in that area (a library, a product, a well-known site), with the thing they shipped and a link to their own writing.
Mark any claim you couldn't verify. No one whose main output is threads.

What to remember

• Before you take someone's advice, ask what they've shipped that people use. Followers measure posting, not building.
• Learn from people who never post by using their work closely and naming the decisions in it.
• Find more good sources through who your best one follows, and keep the list to five or ten.

Go deeper: Turn what you know into a skill · Taste is trained