Here are 88 books that UX Magic fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been designing user interfaces since graduate school at Stanford, where I studied psychology and computer science. Over the five decades since then, I have designed many digital products and services, learning a lot about how to make them usable and useful. Two decades ago, I turned more towards sharing my knowledge and experience through writing (articles and books) and teaching (professionals and students). I’ve taught at Stanford University, Mills College, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of San Francisco, and at professional conferences and companies. Google invited me twice to speak in their Authors @ Google series, and ACM and SIGCHI have given me several awards.
If you design Web sites, you’ve almost certainly already read Steve’s book; it may be the best-selling Web design book of all time. If not, do.
It succinctly explains most of what designers need to know about Website usability. The title of the book – Don’t Make Me Think – is the book’s main point: “If your website makes me think about how to use it, distracting me from my own goals (e.g., booking a flight), I’m out of here.”
In relatively few pages, Steve explains how to design Websites so visitors need not think about how to use them.
Since Don't Make Me Think was first published in 2000, hundreds of thousands of Web designers and developers have relied on usability guru Steve Krug's guide to help them understand the principles of intuitive navigation and information design. Witty, commonsensical, and eminently practical, it's one of the best-loved and most recommended books on the subject.
Now Steve returns with fresh perspective to reexamine the principles that made Don't Make Me Think a classic-with updated examples and a new chapter on mobile usability. And it's still short, profusely illustrated...and best of all-fun to read.
I would like to consider myself an experienced and successful designer, researcher, and educator. I'm an Associate Professor in Communication Design and the Head of Education for the School of Design at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, where I've taught and researched for the last twenty years so I'm super passionate about this subject and love explaining how design works. Before joining academia, I worked internationally as a designer and creative director for numerous prestigious design and media organizations, including Philips, Time-Warner, Windmill Lane Pictures, and WPP in the UK, Ireland, USA, and Southeast Asia. Working in these different businesses and locations gave me a broad perspective on the role and importance of design.
This essential book by Don Norman does not need any more plugging, but it would be impossible to leave it out.
The book forms a brilliant introduction to User Experience Design by explaining how the design of everyday objects relies on an intuitive understanding of how they work. Once we translate this thinking from the physical to the digital world, we are halfway there as UX/UI designers.
Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this ingenious,even liberating,book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization. The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The…
I have been designing user interfaces since graduate school at Stanford, where I studied psychology and computer science. Over the five decades since then, I have designed many digital products and services, learning a lot about how to make them usable and useful. Two decades ago, I turned more towards sharing my knowledge and experience through writing (articles and books) and teaching (professionals and students). I’ve taught at Stanford University, Mills College, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of San Francisco, and at professional conferences and companies. Google invited me twice to speak in their Authors @ Google series, and ACM and SIGCHI have given me several awards.
This book is the software industry’s “bible” on how to start software development projects.
It explains how to conduct up-front user research, before design, prototyping, and coding start. User research, followed by analysis of your findings, is how you determine requirements and figure out what features or improvements are needed and which are most important.
This book presents a collection of methods for doing that. You probably won’t need every method described this book on every project, but having Holtzblatt and Beyer’s toolkit of user-research and analysis methods available when needed is valuable.
I read it several times, and now several of its methods are baked into my normal design process.
Contextual Design: Design for Life, Second Edition, describes the core techniques needed to deliberately produce a compelling user experience. Contextual design was first invented in 1988 to drive a deep understanding of the user into the design process. It has been used in a wide variety of industries and taught in universities all over the world. Until now, the basic CD approach has needed little revision, but with the wide adoption of handheld devices, especially smartphones, the way technology is integrated into people's lives has fundamentally changed. Contextual Design V2.0 introduces both the classic CD techniques and the new techniques…
I have been designing user interfaces since graduate school at Stanford, where I studied psychology and computer science. Over the five decades since then, I have designed many digital products and services, learning a lot about how to make them usable and useful. Two decades ago, I turned more towards sharing my knowledge and experience through writing (articles and books) and teaching (professionals and students). I’ve taught at Stanford University, Mills College, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of San Francisco, and at professional conferences and companies. Google invited me twice to speak in their Authors @ Google series, and ACM and SIGCHI have given me several awards.
When people browse or search the Web for information, they don’t read; they scan, looking for anything matching their goal. Scan, click, scan, click, etc.
Most web designers include waaay too much text in their sites, slowing people down, frustrating poor readers (which unfortunately is a large percentage of the population). Most text on the Web is simply ignored.
I like Ginny’s book because it does a great job of driving that point home and explaining how to cut the text down to what is necessary. It has become a classic in the UX and Web design fields.
Web site design and development continues to become more sophisticated. An important part of this maturity originates with well-laid-out and well-written content. Ginny Redish is a world-renowned expert on information design and how to produce clear writing in plain language for the web. All of the invaluable information that she shared in the first edition is included with numerous new examples. New information on content strategy for web sites, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media make this once again the only book you need to own to optimize your writing for the web.
Jeff has been a UX designer, team leader and product manager for over 20 years. His work in the field helped define some of the key practices product managers use today. Building a customer-centric practice is key to successful products and services and Jeff has demonstrated that not only in the products and companies he’s helped build but in the writing and thinking he’s contributed to the product managaement community.
Product discovery is the way in which great product teams learn whether or not they’re building something of value. Teresa has distilled and sharpened this practice into a set of tools and techniques that she delivers in her signature direct style. Must read for all product managers and UX designers.
"If you haven't had the good fortune to be coached by a strong leader or product coach, this book can help fill that gap and set you on the path to success."
- Marty Cagan
How do you know that you are making a product or service that your customers want? How do you ensure that you are improving it over time? How do you guarantee that your team is creating value for your customers in a way that creates value for your business?
In this book, you'll learn a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that will help…
There is a scene in the 1960 movie adaptation of The Time Traveler by HG Wells where the protagonist goes rapidly into the future as he watches a whole city spin into existence around him. That’s how I feel about my career. I started in 1994 and have watched UX grow into an incredible field! I’ve run my own business since 2008 focused exclusively on qualitative research consulting while also doing all sorts of exciting thought leadership activities – from writing to speaking to creating a number of courses on LinkedIn Learning – and I love to build my UX network too! I live in Silver Spring, Maryland.
As a UX researcher myself, I love how this book explains UX research methods simply and clearly.
I appreciate how it presents everything within a rich background of context and history. For me, this is the book I go to when I need to figure out how to best explain some research approach to a client.
I also appreciate how it also includes sections on myths and incorrect ideas which helps me when I sometimes need to explain to a client why their approach may need to be adjusted to be more methodologically correct.
Finally, I think this is a great book for UX designers to understand when and how to involve research in their efforts.
Think Like a UX Researcher will challenge your preconceptions about user experience (UX) research and encourage you to think beyond the obvious. You'll discover how to plan and conduct UX research, analyze data, persuade teams to take action on the results and build a career in UX. The book will help you take a more strategic view of product design so you can focus on optimizing the user's experience. UX Researchers, Designers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Business Analysts and Marketing Managers will find tools, inspiration and ideas to rejuvenate their thinking, inspire their team and improve their craft.
There is a scene in the 1960 movie adaptation of The Time Traveler by HG Wells where the protagonist goes rapidly into the future as he watches a whole city spin into existence around him. That’s how I feel about my career. I started in 1994 and have watched UX grow into an incredible field! I’ve run my own business since 2008 focused exclusively on qualitative research consulting while also doing all sorts of exciting thought leadership activities – from writing to speaking to creating a number of courses on LinkedIn Learning – and I love to build my UX network too! I live in Silver Spring, Maryland.
This is an extremely comprehensive overview of most aspects of User Experience (UX).
It’s the kind of book that you may never read from cover to cover (it’s over 800 pages!) but it’s exactly what I’ve appreciated having on my bookshelf when I need a quick how-to overview of a specific design or research method.
The discipline of user experience (UX) design has matured into a confident practice and this edition reflects, and in some areas accelerates, that evolution. Technically this is the second edition of The UX Book, but so much of it is new, it is more like a sequel.
One of the major positive trends in UX is the continued emphasis on design-a kind of design that highlights the designer's creative skills and insights and embodies a synthesis of technology with usability, usefulness, aesthetics, and meaningfulness to the user. In this edition a new conceptual top-down design framework is introduced to help…
There is a scene in the 1960 movie adaptation of The Time Traveler by HG Wells where the protagonist goes rapidly into the future as he watches a whole city spin into existence around him. That’s how I feel about my career. I started in 1994 and have watched UX grow into an incredible field! I’ve run my own business since 2008 focused exclusively on qualitative research consulting while also doing all sorts of exciting thought leadership activities – from writing to speaking to creating a number of courses on LinkedIn Learning – and I love to build my UX network too! I live in Silver Spring, Maryland.
There are a whole host of books about UX methods, but in our world of ever-advancing technology, there are few books that are really up to date with how to practice UX when the medium is no longer one-dimensional or even a physical product.
As AR and VR experiences are becoming more and more normal, I’ve appreciated being able to read a book that really captures the most recent evolution of UX methods towards a new virtual world of possibilities.
1. Provides a toolkit of templates for common VR interactions, as well as practical advice on when to use them and how to tailor them for specific use cases; 2. Includes case studies detailing the practical application of interaction theory discussed in each chapter; 3. Presents tables of guidelines for practicing VR developers, for reference during software development; 4. Covers procedures for Interface Evaluation - formulas and testing methodologies to ensure that VR interfaces are effective, efficient, engaging, error-tolerant, and easy to learn; 5. Non-linear organisation - chapters of the book on different concepts can be read to gain knowledge…
I moved into content design from a career in brand and marketing, at a time when the discipline was emerging and not many people really knew what it was. Much of my time since has been spent educating people and organisations and sharing knowledge to help them make better content decisions. Throughout this time, I’ve learnt most of what I know through the experience of working with the design teams, but so many books have also helped me along the way and made my work so much better. I love content design – having the power to improve people's experiences with brands through words is so rewarding, and these books will inspire others to do the same.
For anyone just starting out in content design or UX writing, this book is a must-have. It focuses on the technicalities of creating user-centered microcopy for web journeys, and includes frameworks and guidance to help you get it right. It also features one of my favourite exercises to try with designers – a conversational design workshop to help everyone consider the content before jumping into visual design. Torrey’s extensive knowledge comes from designing content for companies like Google and Microsoft, so she knows her stuff!
When you depend on users to perform specific actions-like buying tickets, playing a game, or riding public transit-well-placed words are most effective. But how do you choose the right words? And how do you know if they work? With this practical book, you'll learn how to write strategically for UX, using tools to build foundational pieces for UI text and UX voice strategy.
UX content strategist Torrey Podmajersky provides strategies for converting, engaging, supporting, and re-attracting users. You'll use frameworks and patterns for content, methods to measure the content's effectiveness, and processes to create the collaboration necessary for success. You'll…
Alex Hillman is always thinking about the intersection of people, relationships, trust, and business. He’s an author, educator, and community builder. These days, he splits his time between operating Indy Hall, which is one of the oldest coworking spaces in the world; teaching creative people how to bootstrap their own businesses at Stacking the Bricks; and collaborating with people and organizations towards the goal of helping 10,000 people become sustainably independent by 2029.
Whether you sell products or services, customers don’t really buy either: they buy outcomes. And it’s not enough to understand what people want to accomplish, truly successful businesses deeply understand how customers view their own success, and how to create a path from where they currently are to where they want to be.
In Badass, Kathy uses her unique and very visual learning style to help you get in the head of your customers and understand the world from their point of view. There’s a shortlist of people who’ve had a huge impact on my career, and Kathy Sierra is at the top of that very shortlist. This book embodies that impact, I consider it required reading.
Imagine you're in a game with one objective: a bestselling product or service. The rules? No marketing budget, no PR stunts, and it must be sustainably successful. No short-term fads. This is not a game of chance. It is a game of skill and strategy. And it begins with a single question: given competing products of equal pricing, promotion, and perceived quality, why does one outsell the others? The answer doesn't live in the sustainably successful products or services. The answer lives in those who use them. Our goal is to craft a strategy for creating successful users. And that…
