Books that shaped my career as UX/UI Designer
If you are interested in UX, Design, Product, Freelance or Development, you will find something useful in here.
When I was younger, I absolutely hated reading. My first experience with the written word was in school where they made me read books on topics that were boring then and are still boring now. The worst ones were the Polish lessons where you had to interpret a text in a language used hundreds of years ago and guess what the author had in mind. Terrible!
Thankfully, my perspective changed at the end of high school when I started reading books about the Second World War. Combined with the release of Harry Potter, my faith in reading was restored. I can’t thank J.K. Rowling enough for filling my childhood with a wondrous world of wizards and, let’s face it, Hermione ❤
When I got interested in design, I started reading books in this field. Starting with visual design, I worked my way to user experience to end with books focusing on processes, psychology and business. In the process, I gathered a good bunch of titles which I would like to share with you. I think that if you are interested in User Experience, Design, Product, Freelance or Development, you will find something in here that you can read.
At the end, there are also links to free e-books from UXPin, IDEO and InVision which I can also recommend to anyone who is looking for free and useful reading.
Books:
Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (3rd Edition)
by Steve Krug
A must read for all beginners in web design. Learn how usable websites are designed and how you can design them.
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition
by Donald A. Norman
The basics on how the world around us is designed. It contains examples and explanations of why many things are badly designed, how the human mind works when interacting with the product, what Design Thinking is and how to use it.
100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
by Susan Weinschenk
A book on how projects influence human psychology and how people perceive design and what they think in the process. You will learn, among other things, how to design so that the user focuses his attention on the essential elements of your work. It also teaches you how to improve the reliability of your projects, how to design that people remember more and what not to do so that your projects are understandable and useful.
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
by Austin Kleon
A short book on how to get inspiration from life and other projects and how to be creative in what you do.
Work for Money, Design for Love: Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running a Successful Design Business
by David Airey
A fantastic guide on how to run your own business design, what the pros and cons of your own business are, how to set up your business, how to work with clients and how to avoid the dangers of running it.
User-Centered Design: A Developer’s Guide to Building User-Friendly Applications
by Travis Lowdermilk
This book demonstrates several ways to include valuable input from potential clients and customers throughout the development process. With practical guidelines and insights from his own experience, author shows you how usability and user-centered design will dramatically change the way people interact with your application.
UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want
by Jaime Levy
A guide where uncomplicated tools and techniques to implement an effective model of practices, related to the UX strategy, are described. You will learn how to identify the target group of users, how to test your prototype, how to conduct competition analysis and do user testing.
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Jake and John describe step-by-step how to conduct a Design Sprint and illustrate how this process helped to solve problems for companies they interacted with while working at Google Ventures.
Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
by Steve Krug
Book explains how to: test any design from a sketch on a napkin to a fully-functioning website or application, keep your focus on finding the most important problems (because no one has the time or resources to fix them all), fix the problems that you find, using his “The least you can do” approach.
Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience
by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
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.
Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience
by Tom Greever
A book on how to communicate with stakeholders and your own team, how to correctly present your projects and convince them of your reasons. It teaches the importance of listening with understanding, how to speak to convey important issues and gain acceptance of your solutions.
Rework
by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
In this book you will learn how to work more effectively and grow your business without spending a lot of money. The book is a collection of valuable advice on how the business works and how you should run it to enlarge it and become a better entrepreneur.
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
by Nir Eyal
A book on how websites such as Facebook or Instagram are designed, how they catch people’s attention and cause them to keep coming back and how to design such products.
Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success
by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown
You will learn what Growth Hacking is, how this process helped to gain users for companies such as Dropbox or Facebook, what the GH process looks like and how to run it in your company and what tools to use.
Atomic Design
by Brad Frost
Author describes how to create and maintain robust design systems, allowing you to roll out higher quality, more consistent UIs faster. Brad Frost introduces a methodology for thinking of our UIs as thoughtful hierarchies, discusses the qualities of effective pattern libraries, and showcases techniques to transform your team’s design and development workflow.
Design Systems
by Alla Kholmatova
Everything about Design Systems: what they are, how they help companies, how to build them, and how to create a team responsible for DS in your company.
Refactoring UI
by Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger
Very practical ebook on UI design. If you are a developer or junior designer looking for some practical advice on UI design it’s a perfect source of knowledge for you. Learn how to design beautiful user interfaces using specific tactics that authors describe.
Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day
by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
This is a step-by-step guide on how to ‘make time’ for things you do not have time in everyday life. Thanks to this book, I ‘made’ time to release Product Design Kit for Figma and write articles on Medium.
Free e-books:
The Design Better Library
by InVision
Build a strong design practice. Dive in for deep knowledge or take a peek when you are looking for something specific. Explore how the best companies approach product design, design thinking, design leadership and more.
Free UX e-books
by UXPin
Thoughtful content on mobile & web prototyping, wireframing, mockups, usability testing, project management, design process and more.
The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design
by IDEO.org
In this free e-book you will learn everything you need to understand about the people you’re designing for, how to run effective brainstorms, how to prototype your ideas and to ultimately arrive at more creative solutions.
Thanks for reading! I hope you found something useful for yourself. If you want to share your top books, don’t hesitate and leave a comment!
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Also, make sure to check out my latest article about Free Product Design Kit for Figma — fully customizable design kit for high fidelity wireframes, user interfaces and style guides.
