25 January 2017
Books are a great way to learn about a subject, and if you’ve been itching to learn more about UX, here’s a list of 5 books that I highly recommend.
First published in 1988, this book still holds relevance today. I first read this in graduate school as I began my studies in human factors, and it has really shaped my thoughts on design. Norman provides practical examples and principles to help you design more effectively for the people who use your products.
For those who are eager to apply UX research and design into their organizations today, this book is a great reference. Building off the foundations of lean and agile development, it illustrates how user feedback can be integrated iteratively as you build out your product.
Although this book isn't specifically about UX, it is very useful for understanding how to cultivate a culture of creativity and innovation within your organizations. Written by Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, it highlights a lot of the lessons he's learned while building out one of the premier animation studios in the world.
Susan Weinschenk does a great job of distilling a bunch of psychology research into a collection of 100 facts on how people think, perceive, and act on information. Each principle has a short 2-3 page explanation, which makes it easy to read and to refer to again at a later time.
When you conduct your first user research interview, you quickly realize that interviewing people is a lot harder than you realized. Because we talk to people everyday, it gives us this false sense that we can elicit the right feedback from users without much training or preparation. This book shows a better way... it provides a great collection of interviewing techniques that will help you gain clearer insights.
And, this is my short list! Happy reading!