Books For UX Designers
Here's a great list for you to kick off your learnings as a user experience designer.
Wow!
If you know me, you know I love books. Recently, I decided to create an office in my home, and I realized that to get to the place where I am now, — as a designer— required a great deal of academic influence. I was reminded of this when I shifted all of my computers around and discovered I needed a place for my books.
So, I did what anyone would do and bought some much needed shelves.
Pre-Pandemic we had bookshelves but then decided to sell them and move out of the country. That didn’t work out so well, but I can tell you the story sometime, it’s quite entertaining; actually.
When I bought them, I thought a set of two, 71” x 30” shelves, would be sufficient for my office. I was wrong. This got me thinking, what the hell am I doing with all of these books. That’s when it became clear to me. Much like my dear, engineer, friend Paul Pommier, or my lawyer friend Phil Davey, I have accrued a collection of works that not only defined me, and my career, but lays out the playbook to get to a place of competence and confidence in my skills as a designer.
So, if you’re looking to start out as a designer, and not sure how to make the leap into UX, look no further.
Right Phase
In all things there are phases. For design, and designers in particular, you reach a point where you realize you need to shift from the basics to a more advanced branch of the field. This is where UX comes into the picture. A lot of folks dismiss the academic side of design and think what we do is create beautiful pictures. This is true, to some extent, but there is a deeper side of design and UX is the beginning.
The point between, “I know I need a dropdown but I don’t know why it’s better than a set of tabs,” is the exact phase you need to be at to be ready for what I call UX Basics.
You should be a UI or Visual Designer, when you make the conscious choice to move to UX.
Propensities
You will need to love math, or be mathematically inclined. You will need to be very good at or have a great deal of knowledge in psychology. You will need to understand systems. You will need to love science.
With these skills and talents in place, you should have no problem making it to the next level of your design journey.
Books
Here they are in no specific order, have fun!
Universal Principles of Design
by William Lidwell
Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated is a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary encyclopedia covering 125 laws, guidelines, human biases, and general considerations important to successful design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, it pairs clear explanations of every design concept with visual examples of the ideas applied in practice. From the 80/20 Rule to the Weakest Link, every major design concept is defined and illustrated.
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction
by Jenifer Tidwell
Designing a good interface isn't easy. Users demand software that is well-behaved, good-looking, and easy to use. Your clients or managers demand originality and a short time to market. Your UI technology -- web applications, desktop software, even mobile devices -- may give you the tools you need, but little guidance on how to use them well.
UI designers over the years have refined the art of interface design, evolving many best practices and reusable ideas. If you learn these, and understand why the best user interfaces work so well, you too can design engaging and usable interfaces with less guesswork and more confidence.
Designing Interfaces captures those best practices as design patterns -- solutions to common design problems, tailored to the situation at hand. Each pattern contains practical advice that you can put to use immediately, plus a variety of examples illustrated in full color. You'll get recommendations, design alternatives, and warnings on when not to use them.
Each chapter's introduction describes key design concepts that are often misunderstood, such as affordances, visual hierarchy, navigational distance, and the use of color. These give you a deeper understanding of why the patterns work, and how to apply them with more insight.
A book can't design an interface for you -- no foolproof design process is given here -- but Designing Interfaces does give you concrete ideas that you can mix and recombine as you see fit. Experienced designers can use it as a sourcebook of ideas. Novice designers will find a roadmap to the world of interface and interaction design, with enough guidance to start using these patterns immediately.
Don't Make Me Think
by Steve Krug
Don't Make Me Think is a book by Steve Krug about human–computer interaction and web usability. The book's premise is that a good software program or web site should let users accomplish their intended tasks as easily and directly as possible.
The Humane Interface
by Jef Raskin
The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems is a book about user interface design written by Jef Raskin and published in 2000. It covers ergonomics, quantification, evaluation, and navigation.
The Non-Designer's Design Book
by Robin Williams
A lot has happened in the world of digital design since the first edition of this title was published, but one thing remains true: There is an ever-growing number of people attempting to design pages with no formal training. This book is the one place they can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help from trusted design instructor Robin Williams. This revised classic--now in full color--includes a new section on the hot topic of Color itself. In The Non-Designer's Design Book,3rd Edition, Robin turns her attention to the basic principles that govern good design. Readers who follow her clearly explained concepts will produce more sophisticated and professional pages immediately.
UI is Communication: How to Design Intuitive, User Centered Interfaces by Focusing on Effective Communication
by Everett N. McKay
User interface design is a challenging, multi-disciplinary activity that requires understanding a wide range of concepts and techniques that are often subjective and even conflicting. Imagine how much it would help if there were a single perspective that you could use to simplify these complex issues down to a small set of objective principles. In UI is Communication, Everett McKay explains how to design intuitive user interfaces by focusing on effective human communication. A user interface is ultimately a conversation between users and technology. Well-designed user interfaces use the language of UI to communicate to users efficiently and naturally. They also recognize that there is an emotional human being at the other end of the interaction, so good user interfaces strive to make an emotional connection. Applying what you learn from UI is Communication will remove much of the mystic, subjectiveness, and complexity from user interface design, and help you make better design decisions with confidence. It’s the perfect introduction to user interface design.
Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience
by Jeff Gothelf
The Lean UX approach to interaction design is tailor-made for today’s web-driven reality. In this insightful book, leading advocate Jeff Gothelf teaches you valuable Lean UX principles, tactics, and techniques from the ground up—how to rapidly experiment with design ideas, validate them with real users, and continually adjust your design based on what you learn.
Inspired by Lean and Agile development theories, Lean UX lets you focus on the actual experience being designed, rather than deliverables. This book shows you how to collaborate closely with other members of the product team, and gather feedback early and often. You’ll learn how to drive the design in short, iterative cycles to assess what works best for the business and the user. Lean UX shows you how to make this change—for the better.
Frame a vision of the problem you’re solving and focus your team on the right outcomes
Bring the designers’ toolkit to the rest of your product team
Share your insights with your team much earlier in the process
Create Minimum Viable Products to determine which ideas are valid
Incorporate the voice of the customer throughout the project cycle
Make your team more productive: combine Lean UX with Agile’s Scrum framework
Understand the organizational shifts necessary to integrate Lean UX
Lean UX received the 2013 Jolt Award from Dr. Dobb's Journal as the best book of the year. The publication's panel of judges chose five notable books, published during a 12-month period ending June 30, that every serious programmer should read.
The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide
by Leah Buley
The User Experience Team of One prescribes a range of approaches that have big impact and take less time and fewer resources than the standard lineup of UX deliverables. Whether you want to cross over into user experience or you're a seasoned practitioner trying to drag your organization forward, this book gives you tools and insight for doing more with less.
Jonathan Bowman is a San Francisco based Product Design Leader, and accomplished author, with over 20 years of UX experience. He has worked with companies like, AT&T, Verizon, Amazon, Spotify, Arlo, TiVo, NETGEAR, and Virgin. He is currently listening to this song, on repeat. He swims every morning, religiously, and plays sitar.
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