Best new UX books from the last 3 years
A new generation of design books published in 2015, 2016 and 2017, that have recently become part of my virtual collection.
UX Books are still a thing. Although long-form articles on User Experience are increasingly becoming available online, for free, books still have a place in our hearts. The challenge of reading in the browser is that we’re constantly distracted by notifications, emails, and much more attractive browser tabs that derail us from finishing what we started – whereas books allow us to focus on a much more immersive type of reading experience.
When you think of UX Books, there’s a pretty well-known list of essential books for every UX designer circulating online. There are many versions of the same list, but they mostly revolve around the same usual publications.
But what about the most recent books?
What are some interesting UX and Design Books published over the last two or three years, that are worth considering to your personal collection?
The list below aggregates some of my favorite books, in no particular order. Hope you enjoy the selection.
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Atomic Design, by Brad Frost
We’re tasked with making interfaces for more users in more contexts using more browsers on more devices with more screen sizes and more capabilities than ever before. That’s a daunting task indeed. Thankfully, design systems are here to help.
Atomic Design details all that goes into creating and maintaining robust design systems, allowing you to roll out higher quality, more consistent UIs faster than ever before. This book 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.
The Joy of UX: User Experience and Interactive Design for Developers
For modern developers, UX expertise is indispensable: Without outstanding user experience, your software will fail. Now, David Platt has written a comprehensive developer’s guide to achieving world-class user experience.
The Best Interface Is No Interface: The Simple Path to Brilliant Technology
In this book, Golden Krishna challenges our world of nagging, screen-based bondage, and shows how we can build a technologically advanced world without digital interfaces. In his insightful, raw, and often hilarious criticism, Golden reveals fascinating ways to think beyond screens using three principles that lead to more meaningful innovation. Whether you’re working in technology, or just wary of a gadget-filled future, you’ll be enlightened and entertained while discovering that the best interface is no interface.
The Tao of User Experience
The Tao of User Experience is a collection of 96 tenets of User Experience as a profession, a goal, and an idea. It’s the culmination of everything I’ve learned, all the things I find myself wanting to teach junior designers, to CEOs, to programmers, and anyone else who needs UX advice.
100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design
Not specific to User Experience, but definitely worth reading. 100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design takes a fresh look at Swiss typography and photo-graphics, posters, corporate image design, book design, journalism and typefaces over the past hundred years.
Borge Mogensen: Simplicity and Function
This magnificent monograph examines Mogensen’s fascinating approach to design and presents his most well known and most popular pieces of furniture. Workshop drawings, sketches and photographs of his furniture as well as archival pictures from his everyday life offer fascinating insight into the world of the Danish designer, whose furniture is not only attractive, but also always, above all, functional.
Data-Driven Design: Improving User Experience with A/B Testing
Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Facebook have used data-driven design techniques to improve the user experience of their consumer products. With this book, you’ll learn how improve your design decisions through data-driven A/B testing, and how you can apply this process to everything from small design tweaks to large-scale UX concepts.
How to
Full title: “How to use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, make people laugh, make people cry and (every once in a while) change the world.”
Offering insight and inspiration for artists, designers, students, and anyone interested in how words, images, and ideas can be put together, How to provides insight to the design process of one of this century’s most renowned creative minds.
User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product
How do you build a product that delights users? You must first know who your users are and how they plan to use what you’re building. With this practical book, you’ll explore the often-misunderstood practice of user story mapping, and learn how it can help keep your team stay focused on users and their experience throughout the development process.
The Practitioner’s Guide to User Experience Design
The Practitioner’s Guide to User Experience Design breaks down the essence of what it takes to meet a customer’s needs and shows you how to apply these principles while working in tech. From finding your inspiration to creating prototypes, this book pulls from case studies, research, and personal experience to give you the tools and tactics you need to survive in the fast-paced world of UX design.
Prototyping for Physical and Digital Products
Prototyping and user testing is the best way to create successful products, but many designers skip this important step and use gut instinct instead. By explaining the goals behind prototyping — and demonstrating how to prototype for both physical and digital products — this O’Reilly report helps beginning and intermediate designers become more comfortable with creating and testing prototypes early and often in the process.
Prototyping is a necessary skill in all areas of design, especially for startups, entrepreneurs, in-house designers, and freelancers. Author Kathryn McElroy explains various prototyping methods, from fast and dirty to high fidelity and refined, and reveals ways to test your prototypes with users.
Graphic Design Visionaries
Featuring 75 of the world’s most influential designers, this book presents the story of graphic design through the fascinating personal stories and significant works that have shaped the field.
Arranged in chronological order, the book shows the development of design, from early innovators such as Edward McKnight Kauffer and Alexey Brodovitch to key figures of mid-century Swiss Design and corporate American branding. The book profiles masters of typography, such as Wim Crouwel and Neville Brody; visionary magazine designers, such as Leo Lionni and Cipe Pineles; designers who influenced the world of film, such as Saul Bass and Robert Brownjohn; and the creators of iconic poster work, such as Armin Hofmann, Rogério Duarte and Yusaku Kamekura.
