The “Interviewing Users” also gives great insider tips, like making a brain dump before interviews to clear your mind of preconceptions and expectations. I think this would make a good reference book for usability testing best practices. Though some of the tips might sound obvious (keep eye contact, get the participant to narrate, do not drop clues, etc.), it has helped me be more conscious of these things while attending tests and conducting interviews. It takes only a few hours to read, but it’ll shape your outlook and serve you throughout your career, especially if you’re a freelance UX designer.
Sixty years ago he published The art of color, which is still considered the bible of color for artists and designers. Designing Interfaces is holding its ground even sixteen years after the original edition. This thick book with a lovely mandarin duck is a stalwart design guide for all the possible interfaces. Thus, we have a living breathing list of best books to learn UI/UX design, no way ultimate, but 100% worth your attention.
What about UI design books?
Now, if you’ve found yourself looking for a way into this trend as an advanced UX designer, I have just the book for you. Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden’s Lean UX explores the outcomes of an agile working mindset and how you can make the most of lean UX. And on top of all that, a UX designer needs to know their way around in the business world.
And, if you’re looking to expand your horizon, check out the footnotes for further readings. I didn’t feel like he was wasting my time by repeating the same things. Besides the content, the other reason I am so enthusiastic about “Refactoring UI” is that Wathan and Schoger respected my time. They could’ve inflated this into a 400-page ui ux design books book to make it feel more, as many authors do. “Refactoring UI” is a single-day read, but not because it’s superficial. With more and more efficient collaboration methods and the word agile becoming ever so important in the 21st century, lean UX has become a design management system all designers are getting acquainted with.
User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design are Changing the Way We Live, Work and Play by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant
Master UI Design Elements by Denislav Jeliazkov is a concise 200-page book on the fundamentals of UI design. It’s perfect for beginners and includes practical advice and tips for anyone learning interested in improving their UI design skills. Modern user-centered design, for the most part, relies on a handful of core design principles and design patterns that have been studied, tested, and honed over decades. Permits storing data to personalize content and ads across Google services based on user behavior, enhancing overall user experience.
Let’s be real; there are way too many credibility issues going on where we get our information. We wanna learn something, we check the internet, we claim we are well-read. We hope you will find these resources worth trying and useful for your web design career journey. New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller uses the seven universal elements of powerful stories to teach readers how to dramatically improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses. The adaptive unconscious that empirical psychology has revealed, and that Wilson describes, is much more than a repository of primitive drives and conflict-ridden memories. It is a set of pervasive, sophisticated mental processes that size up our worlds, set goals, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else.
Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences by Stephen P. Anderson
And now you have it as a book, organized into small bite-sized lessons packed with actionable advice. I was particularly astounded by how the user-friendliness of equipment came to prominence only recently and how technology is becoming simpler and simpler until it becomes invisible. Also, the authors make many revelations about the influence of industrial design on interface design, which is a perspective that’s usually not highlighted much. Thankfully, the book picks up with good advice on building and scaling product teams, product strategy and vision, discovery, and transformation techniques. I found the two chapters about the loss of innovation and velocity most revealing, followed by the chapters about roadmaps and objectives. The anecdotes and case studies in the book helped me see the big picture, providing a better understanding of the challenges I may face during an interview study.
The book primarily teaches the essentials of top-notch web design. It offers practical examples for better understanding and prompts self-evaluation to identify areas for improvement in your own work. This e-book emphasizes the importance of truly understanding UX beyond the surface level. It sets up your UX career with a long-term perspective and practical tools to ace portfolios, resumes, and interviews. The book also underscores the significance of continuous learning and practice in navigating the evolving UX landscape.
Design is the solution by Nathan Shedroff
This can be particularly daunting if you’re studying or transitioning into UX/UI design from graphic design, print design, or even web design. As soon as you’ve mastered one tool, framework or technology, something else comes along. If you’re working in a small team, the burden to be a unicorn UX designer is even heavier. You might already be wearing some of these hats, while other roles might be shared with product managers or developers.
The reality is that most designers don’t read books and don’t actively strive to improve their design skills systematically. The book teaches that effective design stems from understanding human behavior and motivations. It applies psychology and neuroscience research to user-centric design. Thus, it offers practical advice on creating intuitive, accessible digital and physical products for varied audiences. You’ll also find techniques to create compelling user experiences and get higher conversion rates. There are hundreds of UI design and UX design books on the market today, and it can feel overwhelming.
The designers at Mailchimp valued to the power of typography and typographical identity in their recent rebrand when they selected an old-style serif, Cooper Light, as their primary typeface. Cooper Light was originally released over 100 years ago, and the slightly ironic choice (for a tech company) has become synonymous with Mailchimp’s brand in just a couple of years. This landmark reference will become the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their design expertise. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits.
- If you’re looking for the best book websites on web design topics, you are in the right place.
- Portigal breaks down the process into well-structured, detailed chapters full of examples and helpful tips, like how to deal with difficult interviewees or slow conversations.
- Universal Principles of Design is an in-depth encyclopedia of design, user psychology and mental models.
- Even the best designers are just “hacking” it most of the time and learning new skills as they go.
- Instead, The Design of Everyday Things is a deep dive into human behavior, psychology, ergonomics, and research.
- He illustrates the outcomes of adhering to or straying from this user-focused approach through detailed examples.
This shelf is for you if you’re a senior designer looking to accelerate your career or a junior designer who wants to know more about how product design teams work. I recommend this book to managers, designers, and developers alike, as it provides a common-sense outlook on usability. Also, he brings plenty of entertaining examples to underline his points. “Hooked” established an understanding of how to build and reinforce habits in certain products. Also, if you’re someone glued to their phone, it’ll make you more mindful of these products’ psychology without being preachy.
Differentiates real visitors from automated bots, ensuring accurate usage data and improving your website experience. Unfortunately, world-class educational materials such as this page are normally hidden behind paywalls or in expensive textbooks. “Designing Interfaces” is essentially a comprehensive catalog of various UI patterns. It’s a practical resource, particularly beneficial for those beginning their UI design journey.
