agreed; there are some things you just can't learn without proper training, but if it’s something fairly straight-forward, you can get pretty far in studying common practices and trying things out yourself.
there’s a huge wealth of knowledge out there in just looking around you. my approach (not a pro at all) when designing anything really is just to look for cues from others. there are a lot of resource-rich players that have invested a lot in UI/UX design, and, the great thing here, is that much of the pay-off from those investments is freely available; just look at their products.
this is especially true on the web where it’s so easy to find and compare sites or apps related to what you’re doing. if you take the time to examine them closely and look for commonalities, you’ll generally find many of the more successful sites share a lot in common when you get down to fundamentals (though they may look and ‘feel’ very different). the ‘artistic’ aspect of UI/UX gets the majority of attention (and, in my opinion, is the hard part to master), but what makes or breaks a design is usability, and that you can learn fairly easily.
at the very least you end-up with a product that works; and this is the most important element in UI/UX. from there you can learn to perfect it and make it look amazing, but that takes time and experience.
99% of UI/UX design is people copying each other. The remaining 1% advance the narrative. Becoming great at UI/UX means becoming the 1%, but there's no shame in just being good.
Great UI can be created without adding anything new. Use old things well, in intuitive ways, and you already are ahead of 99% of your competition anyway.
there’s a huge wealth of knowledge out there in just looking around you. my approach (not a pro at all) when designing anything really is just to look for cues from others. there are a lot of resource-rich players that have invested a lot in UI/UX design, and, the great thing here, is that much of the pay-off from those investments is freely available; just look at their products.
this is especially true on the web where it’s so easy to find and compare sites or apps related to what you’re doing. if you take the time to examine them closely and look for commonalities, you’ll generally find many of the more successful sites share a lot in common when you get down to fundamentals (though they may look and ‘feel’ very different). the ‘artistic’ aspect of UI/UX gets the majority of attention (and, in my opinion, is the hard part to master), but what makes or breaks a design is usability, and that you can learn fairly easily.
at the very least you end-up with a product that works; and this is the most important element in UI/UX. from there you can learn to perfect it and make it look amazing, but that takes time and experience.