Winter is coming, which means it’s time cozy up by the fire, grab some hot cocoa and get lost in that book you’ve been meaning to dive into. For UX Designers, this is a good opportunity to catch up on some design-specific reading. There are plenty of resources out there that will give you a deeper understanding of the principles behind UX design as well as some practical tips and tricks you can apply to your website or mobile app. From beginners to senior UX designers, we’ve got UX books out there for all levels of experience.
Here are our UX Book recommendations for what to read during all those long, winter nights ahead.
Check them out!
1. Smashing UX Design
(by Jesmond J. Allen and James J. Chudley)
Known as the ‘UX Bible’, this UX book is written by authors from Smashing Magazine, the world’s most popular resource for web designers and developers (which just so happens to be featured in our overview of the best UX blogs). In this book, Allen and Chudely share their UX tips based on a collective 30 years having worked in UX. This includes when and how to use the most appropriate UX research and plenty of design techniques.
Learn more about the book here.
2. Don’t Make Me Think
(by Steve Krug)
An oldie but goodie, this UX book focuses on website usability, which interestingly enough, wasn’t even considered a legitimate field of its own in 2000 (at the time of writing). It has since been revised in 2005 and 2013 and serves as a great guide for creating designs with which users don’t need to think too much about how the user interface works. In other words, problem-solving but also very easy to use.
Learn more about the book here.
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3. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
(by Susan Weinschenk)
This UX book is an interesting combination of real science and research as well as practical examples that will help you better understand UX design. Like many expert publications, this book is not designed to be read continuously. It is rather a chapter book that covers a variety of different topics such as ‘How People See’, ‘How People Read’, ‘How People Think’ and more.
4. Lean UX
(by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden)
This is a fairly well-known one to the UX world. The Lean UX Approach to interaction design is an approach that is “tailor-made for today’s web-driven reality”. This UX book is inspired by Lean and Agile development theories, showing you how to quickly experiment with your design ideas as well as validate them with users and iterate upon the design based on these learnings. Lean UX was given the 2013 Jolt Award from Dr. Dobb’s Journal (Best Book of the Year).
Learn more about this book here.
5. The Design of Everyday Things
(by Don Norman)
Originally published in 1988 (don’t freak out!), this UX book was majorly updated and re-published in 2013 and is now a best-seller. The Design of Everyday Things focuses on the psychology behind good and bad design and touches on topics (or shall I say disciplines) such as ergonomics, design practice and behavioural psychology. This author has also popularised the term ‘user-centered design’ which he has defined and explained in great detail in the book.
Learn more about this book here.
Looking for more UX resources?
There are plenty more books that were not mentioned, including UI is Communication, and more.
If you enjoyed this article…you might also like our overview of the top 10 Hottest User Experience blogs, read this article for better understanding of the difference between UX and UI or learn more about the Best User Experience Tools out there.
Happy Reading!
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