These companies invest millions in UX research. They have entire teams of PhDs analyzing exactly where a “Cancel” button works best, what the ideal size of a touch target is, how a navigation menu should behave. Every pixel you see in a major app has been tested, retested, and validated with thousands of users.

You don’t have that budget. But you have eyes.

As a solo dev, you’re not going to hire a UX team. You’re not going to run tests with a thousand users. And that’s fine. Because the results of those studies are right there, for free, in the palm of your hand.

Stuck on a design decision? Open a major app. See how they solved it. Don’t know how to organize a settings screen? Open Instagram. Unsure about navigation? Open Airbnb. Want a reference for how to present a list? Open Spotify.

These apps are basically a free catalog of the best UX practices on the planet.

This isn’t copying. It’s being smart.

Some devs think they need to create everything from scratch to be original. That every interaction needs to be unique. But you know what users actually want? Familiarity. They want to open your app and already know how to use it, because the patterns are the same ones they already know from other apps.

Originality in design doesn’t mean reinventing every component. It means solving the user’s problem in the smoothest way possible. And if someone has already figured out what that way is, use it.

That’s free R&D. Take advantage of it.