If the best chance for practice you have, is on personal projects - so be it.
Find sites for inspiration. Design is ALWAYS changing. Things you're just getting sick of now (chunky buttons, ribbons, page tears etc.) other designers first saw a long time ago - those thing slowly saturate the design community before they're everywhere.
Browse Dribbble.com every day.
When you have to design a site, use sites likes patterntap.com, and uiparade.com to see great examples of slick UIs.
Most importantly, "eat your own dogfood." Use the products you've made, non-stop. Just keep testing and testing. If things feel weird, or unnatural, iterate, and eat more dogfood.
Design should never be something someone gets "right" the first time - its an iterative process of learning user behavior based on what does or does not perform well.
Comments
As a professional UX guy, here are my two cents:
Do it : repeat.
If the best chance for practice you have, is on personal projects - so be it.
Find sites for inspiration. Design is ALWAYS changing. Things you're just getting sick of now (chunky buttons, ribbons, page tears etc.) other designers first saw a long time ago - those thing slowly saturate the design community before they're everywhere.
Browse Dribbble.com every day.
When you have to design a site, use sites likes patterntap.com, and uiparade.com to see great examples of slick UIs.
Most importantly, "eat your own dogfood." Use the products you've made, non-stop. Just keep testing and testing. If things feel weird, or unnatural, iterate, and eat more dogfood.
Design should never be something someone gets "right" the first time - its an iterative process of learning user behavior based on what does or does not perform well.