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The best Product Managers don’t rely on memory for inspiration. They collect examples of great product thinking, onboarding flows, pricing pages, feature announcements, UX interactions, and organise them into a swipe file they can return to.
A good swipe file doesn’t just save cool ideas. It speeds up brainstorming, improves collaboration, and helps you make better decisions and make them fast.
Example:
❌ “Let’s redesign our onboarding flow.”
✅ “I’ve seen three examples that reduce drop-off using milestone nudges and progressive disclosure. Let’s explore how we could apply that pattern here.”
Great Product Managers are great pattern matchers. They’ve seen enough product ideas, both the good and the bad, to recognise what works, what doesn’t, and why.
But let’s be honest: we forget most of what we see. That beautiful pricing page. That clever waitlist. That one setting toggle buried three clicks deep in an app you opened once? Gone.
That’s why great Product Managers keep swipe files, simple collections of real product examples and UX patterns they can revisit. It’s not about copying. It’s about building your own reference library of what’s out there, so you’re not starting from scratch every time a new problem lands on your plate.
When a Product Manager gets stuck on a UX challenge or needs inspiration for a new feature, the default move is to “look around”, open a few competitor apps, browse Product Hunt, or run a Google search.
But by that point, you’re already behind. You’re reacting to the moment instead of pulling from a deep well of prior thinking.
Without a swipe file, here’s what tends to happen:
And most critically: you miss out on proven patterns that could solve your problem faster.
A swipe file is your personal idea bank, one that grows over time and pays compounding returns. It’s not just about collecting screenshots. It’s about curating a resource that makes you faster, sharper, and more creative as a Product Manager.
Here’s what building your own personal swipe file gives you:
1️⃣ Faster Problem Solving. When you're staring at a blank page or whiteboard, nothing beats having a few real-world examples ready to go.
2️⃣ Sharper Product Taste. The more good (and bad) product decisions you observe, the more refined your instincts become.
3️⃣ Better Team Communication. It’s easier to convince design, engineering, or stakeholders when you can show what you mean, not just describe it.
4️⃣ Ongoing Learning. A swipe file keeps you plugged into how products evolve, what users respond to, and what best-in-class looks like across industries.
Keeping a swipe file isn’t just about saving cool screenshots, it’s about building a long-term habit that sharpens your product instincts and accelerates decision-making.
Here’s a simple 3-step framework to make swipe files part of your workflow:
1️⃣ Capture What Resonates, Don’t Wait for the Perfect Example
Every week, you encounter product moments that stand out: a slick signup flow, a clear onboarding checklist, or a pricing page that just works. The trick is not to trust your memory, save it.
🖼️ Screenshot that flow.
🔗 Copy that URL.
🗒️ Write a one-liner about what made it great.
Start with moments that make you pause and think, “That’s clever”, that’s your signal to swipe it.
2️⃣ Organise with Intent, Not Just for Storage, But for Use
The power of a swipe file is in how quickly you can reference it. Categorise by:
And add one note per entry:
📝 “Clean upsell flow using progress bars + FOMO. Could apply to our freemium model.”
Your goal is to create a library you can actually use, not just collect.
3️⃣ Reuse It During Moments That Matter
Your swipe file becomes especially powerful when:
🗣️ “We need to streamline our dashboard.”
✅ “Here are three dashboards from tools with similar complexity, notice how they simplify layout using toggles and tabs.”
The difference between a good idea and a persuasive one is how well you can back it up.
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