Getting Star-ted
Looking for a handful of top recommendations? Seeking a crash course in UX principles? Look for the ⭐.
Books & Articles
- ⭐ Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and *Visual Explanations.* Tufte probably had more influence on my early career than anyone else. He’s looking through the lens of information design, which is especially useful for data visualization but also provides way to think about any design project—and to link the visual and UX into a coherent whole. Even if you’re a Kindle reader, get these in hardcover.
- ⭐ Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge. Introduces the valuable concepts of choice architecture and libertarian paternalism.
- ⭐ Don Norman, *The Design of Everyday Things.* This is a classic. I’ll be honest, though: I’ve only read the first few chapters and then it starts to get repetitive.
- ⭐ Elevate Your UX with Heuristic Analysis. Overview of a useful technique and a whole bunch of principles. You can also go straight to Donald Norman's design principles for usability and Jakob Nielsen’s 10 heuristics.
- “The Truth About Download Time” (User Interface Engineering, 2006). Old but great example of how users can grossly misunderstand their own experiences.
- “Consistency in Design is the Wrong Approach” (User Interface Engineering, 2005)
- Designing Interactions. This is more historical context than anything—and it’s huge—but I’ve really enjoyed the bits I’ve read so far, e.g., the history of how the mouse came about.
- If you really enjoy Nudge, you can also try Thinking, Fast and Slow. Dense but fascinating...but beware that some of the findings have failed to replicate. Skip Chapter 4 (priming) entirely. Misbehaving is also great.
- Chip and Dan Heath, *Switch.*
A Few Articles by Dave