I was recently reviewing a design iteration that wasn’t intuitive and lacked attention to detail. I thought to myself, “You (the designer) did research and checked out how others solve a similar problem. Go back to your research, look at your inspiration, and compare it to yours.”

Research, competitor analysis, or anything that you choose to do as a designer as part of your process to ship amazing things isn’t something just to check off. Refer back to it after every iteration. Ask yourself: Is my design as good as or better than this?

When you’re heads-down designing, it’s easy to get caught up in technical requirements and a million other things. Referring back zooms you out a bit to help you recall the bigger picture.