Ignore Dribbble — Use These Sites For Design Inspiration Instead
Glossy UIs with animations don’t always work
Ah Dribbble, the holy grail of UI and web designers back when its front page wasn’t filled with garbage screens….
I’ll cut the crap — Dribbble sucks nowadays and taking inspiration from there can harm your design decisions deeply.
Why ? because their front page is riddled with un-codable and non-accessible UIs that pay no heed to UX.
Dribbble’s quality has taken a massive hit over the past few years or more so after they removed the invite feature which increased the number of users on their site.
Now every second person has an account there which means it’s a race for gaining likes and eyeballs on their shots, instead of designing good products and sharing them with peers for feedback.
Most designs that gain popularity there turns out to be hypothetical designs done by some underpaid intern in a studio somewhere in SE Asia.
And if you’re trying to gain ideas then you’re better off avoiding those, real-life websites & mobile app UIs look nothing like the ones over there.
But if not Dribbble, then what other sites to use for gaining inspiration ?
If you guessed Behance then no — that site is mainly reserved for 3D, graphic design and illustrations.
You can find really good projects there too but chances are on the lower end.
So instead, here are a bunch of sites that I use on a daily basis for getting design inspiration for my projects.
Screenlane
Contains — Web & Mobile UI
Siteinspire
Contains — Web UI only
And that’s it.
Just these 8 sites + Dribbble occasionally, because often having too much on my plate confuses me.
And that’s all I had to share with you guys.
Before concluding I’d like to provide a bit of context on certain sites, from my experience.
Pinterest is the odd one out — because it’s not a design-related site but it’s one of the best image search engines out there.
Almost all images uploaded online can be found on Pinterest, however to get the best results you need to use very specific keywords.
And I know you can find your way around it!! (you can right ?)
For Siteinspire — the website is a tad bit old and doesn’t publish too many new designs frequently either.
This can result in you not being updated on the newest trends, but for some vintage work, I’d recommend this site any day.
Now before anyone comments on why I omitted Muzli from here, it’s technically an “extension” and not a “website” where you can find resources.
They do curate it for you though, I mean installing it is up to you.
And that was the list guys.
Let me know if there are any more sites that you guys use and I’ll add them here later or write an updated article soon.
Once again, I have nothing against Dribbble. My own portfolio is there, however some sites are way better at doing the job Dribbble intends to do.
Hi there 👋🏻 I’m Sharanya — you can find me on Dribbble & LinkedIn or reach out directly via email here.
