[seanwilson]

Sometimes the design space is so limited though (I'm talking in general here), multiple people will inevitably arrive at similar designs. I've felt this myself with mobile design which can be really constrictive. Once you enumerate obvious interface variations, weigh up pros/cons, discard the obviously bad ones, iterate a little etc. you can come up with something you think is unique but has been done many times before.

I was designing a mobile paint app for example and had to make choices like how you bring up the colour picker, move layers, change tools, preview brush settings etc. There's only so many ways to do certain things on a tiny screen.