It’s not just having an eye for it; UI design is an entire field, and human computer interaction (HCI) has existed since the 70s. I think that a large part of the problem is PMs / managers / tech leads not understanding that design has subjective elements but can also be objectively good or bad, and that they can’t tell the difference between a design that is correct and works well but might not look very flashy vs something that gets lots of likes on Dribble but is awful to use. This feeds into itself and leads to more people thinking that they know what good design is (pretty) and hiring other people who call themselves designers who have no idea about the actual science behind it.

As a developer who appreciates good design but doesn’t really know how to create it, can you suggest a good entry level resource that summarizes what we’ve learned over the last 50 years about HCI and how to make usable interfaces?

Don't Make Me Think be Steve Krugg,Grid systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller Brockman, Designing with Grids by Mark Boulton, Any of Ellen Lupton's Type Design books. All light reads except Josef's.

Also, the classic Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst, and probably just go and read everything on Smashing Magazine from about 2010 to now.

Pluralsight has a few nice courses.

cracks fingers I made a book for you! http://uxbook.io/

A sample would be nice.

The publishers have plans to do that apparently but not yet. I definitely want to do chapter excerpts.

I have the same problem. If you showed me two UIs I could probably identify the more aesthetically pleasing one.

But if you showed me a single UI, I highly doubt I could improve it.

I believe [0] the biggest trick is to avoid most of the things you can do.

[0] http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/slide_design_programmers.html