This comprehensive books list will help you better understand UX Design

If you’re looking to up your game in UX, user research, usability, information architecture, user interface design, interaction design, content strategy, or experience strategy, you’re in luck!

There’s a fantastic collection of reading materials out there that you will want to take advantage of.

This books collection offers extensive resources that can help you enhance your expertise and talents in these areas.

So, don’t miss this opportunity to expand your knowledge and skill set with these books.

It offers a diverse selection of books that deeply delve into design thinking, methodologies, techniques, core principles, and industry standards. By perusing this comprehensive list, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of these topics and glean invaluable insights and knowledge that will significantly benefit you in your career.

Various books delve into design thinking, methodologies, techniques, core principles, and industry standards.

The Golden Books (evergreen)

1. The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman
2. About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Alan Cooper
3. The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond, Jesse James Garrett
4. The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide, Leah Buley
5. Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind, Jocelyn K. Glei, 99u
6. A Practical Guide to Information Architecture, Donna Spencer
7. Designing Together: The collaboration and conflict management handbook for creative professionals, Dan M. Brown
8. Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences, Stephen Anderson
9. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, Susan Weinschenk
10. Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience, Jeff Gothelf, and Josh Seiden

More Must-Reads On Thinking, Methods, Principles, and Best Practices

• The Shape of Design, Frank Chimero
• Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior, Indi Young
• Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work, Indi Young
• Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, Steve
• Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions, Bill Scott, Theresa Neil
• The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life), John Maeda
• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing for the Web and Beyond, Peter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld, Jorge Arango
• Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook, Saul Greenberg, Sheelagh Carpendale, Nicolai Marquardt, Bill Buxton
• Well Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love, Jon Kolko
• Thoughts on Interaction Design, Jon Kolko
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Seth Godin
• Don’t Make Me Think AND Rocket Surgery Made Easy, Steve Krug
• Designing Interfaces, Jennifer Tidwell
• Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, Jeffrey Rubin, Dana Chisnell
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information AND Envisioning Information, Edward R. Tufte
• A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making, Russ Unger & Carolyn Chandler
• Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers, Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, James Macanufo
• The Mobile Frontier: A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences, Rachel Hinman
• Design Is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable, Nathan Shedroff
• Prototyping: A Practitioner’s Guide, Todd Zaki Warfel
• Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences, Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff, Darrel Rhea
• Content Strategy for the Web, by Kristina Halvorson, Melissa Rach
• Just Enough Research, Erika Hall
• Design Is A Job, Mike Monteiro
• Designing for Emotion, Aaron Walter
• Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills, David Sherwin
• Letting Go of The Words: Writing Web Content that Works, Janice (Ginny) Redish
• Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design, Robert Hoekman Jr
• Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action, Robert Hoekman Jr
• Designing for the Social Web, Joshua Porter
• Undercover User Experience Design, Cennydd Bowles, James Box
• Product Design for the Web: Principles of Designing and Releasing Web Products, Randy Hunt
• Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, by Ben Shneiderman, Catherine Plaisant, Maxine Cohen, Steven Jacobs
• This is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases, Marc Stickdorn, Jakob Schneider
• Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences, Nancy Duarte
• Metaskills: 5 Talents for the Robotic Age, Marty Neumeier
• The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design, Marty Neumeier
• Getting Real AND Rework, 37 Signals, Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
• The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems, Jef Raskin
• Simple and Usable Web, Mobile, and Interaction Design, Giles Colborne
• Search Patterns: Design for Discovery, Peter Morville, Jeffery Callender
• Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, Don Norman
• Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? Susan Weinschenk
• Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services, Kim Goodwin
• A Web For Everyone, Sarah Horton, Whitney Quesenbery
• Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results, Christina Wodtke
• Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams, Peter Merholz, Kristin Skinner
• Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning, Dan M. Brown
• Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World, Peter Merholz, Todd Wilkens, Brandon Schauer, David Verba
• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, Nir Eyal
• The 46 Rules of Genius: An Innovator’s Guide to Creativity, Marty Neumeier
• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, Braden Kowitz, Jake Knapp, and John Zeratsky
• Designing with Data: Improving the User Experience with A/B Testing, Rochelle King, Elizabeth F Churchill, Caitlin Tan
• Banish Your Inner Critic: Silence the Voice of Self-Doubt to Unleash Your Creativity and Do Your Best Work, Denise Jacobs
• Design for Real Life, Eric Meyer & Sara Wachter-Boettcher
• Practical Design Discovery, Dan Brown
• On Web Typography, By Jason Santa Maria
• Designing Voice User Interfaces: Principles of Conversational Experiences, Cathy Pearl
• Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Donella H. Meadows

Read more articles exploring the dynamic interplay between design, user experience, artificial intelligence, and technology here.