You can never let your data dictate design. If you do, you end up following what people currently do and never innovating.
Every time you make the user make a decision they don’t care about, you have failed as a designer.
Never use a warning when you mean undo.
To the user, the interface is the product.
When I'm hiring, I don't look for credentials, I look for knowledge.
When you are solving a difficult problem re-ask the problem so that your solution helps you learn faster. Find a faster way to fail, recover, and try again. If the problem you are trying to solve involves creating a magnum opus, you are solving the wrong problem.