The benefits of academic UX reading, and how to commit to it
Part 2 of 3 in “A not-so-easy, but cost-effective guide to becoming a UX professional”
In order to find a substitute to the rigor of academia, why not replicate it? One of the most overlooked and simplest ways of kickstarting a UX career is through books (I’ve created a list at the bottom of this article for you to use) and community (we’ll talk about this in a bit.)
- Textbooks transition through skill levels. Textbooks cover a wide range of topics and difficulty levels from introductory readings to methodology guidelines and design theory. There will almost always be an introductory level textbook to get your foot into the door, and there will almost always be further advanced readings for you as you grow and develop.
- Textbooks are better sources of truth. In contrast to online articles, textbooks are exposed to rigorous academic review before publication. Having industry recognized and credible authors also ensure they are more likely to be referenced as guidelines for standards.
- Textbooks are quick references for practical work. Many textbooks also provide actionable step-by-step guides for application into work or practice projects (e.g. Designing for the Digital Age, Observing the User Experience, Handbook of Usability Testing). These handbooks have proved to be invaluable in my own experience working at Deloitte Digital.
- Textbooks provide the full context. Textbooks are intentionally organized and written. In most cases no depth of information is covered before the necessary width for context is explained or given direction to.
- Textbooks are relatively cheap as a source of knowledge. A good foundational set of books will cost around $350. The cheapest online GA course costs $750 which is almost double the price.
Committing to the Journey
Knowing academic reading can be good is one thing, but committing to it is another. I’ve split up the journey into three distinct parts to help you get started. You’ll need to change, retain, and internalize.
Change
We need to make reading into a daily habit. Here are some of the self-manipulation strategies I’ve used to motivate myself to commit to a new standard of learning.
- Buy a physical book from the list below, now. You’ll need a book at the appropriate level to begin. Scroll to the bottom of this page to the book list and purchase the first on the list you have not yet read. Do not buy an online version. You will 100% get distracted by emails and internet boops and beeps.
- Start small and consistent. Start by reading thirty minutes to one hour a day. Build up the early wins by easing into the process. Don’t try to exhaust yourself with 2-hour sessions. Begin with a curiosity-level book.
- Keep count. Write the date and percentage of pages read after each session directly on the page you finish your session on. Seeing only a page number can be extremely demotivating because our mind is terrible at doing the mental math (Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow). Compare 29/321 against 8% complete. It’s been studied that being able to track progress is a great source of motivation (Chip and Dan Heath, Switch). In the same way, keeping track of an increasing percentage makes even the thickest of textbooks more approachable; you’ll feel like you’re achieving something each reading session.
- Guilt-trip yourself. Go to a cafe and buy a coffee. If you can’t motivate yourself to read in your room, go to a cafe and buy a drink. You just wasted $3.50 on an Americano, but it won’t be a waste if you knock out a killer study session. Humans by nature always seek closure. Ease the guilt and cognitive dissonance of wasting money on a cup of coffee you didn’t need by accomplishing something, like studying.
- Create a new identity. Tell the people you want to disappoint the least that you’re a UX scholar. Create a new identity for yourself by telling co-workers you’re a proud UX designer, publish stories to your instagram or snapchat of your study sessions, or brand yourself as a budding prospect in the field to friends. This will make you personally accountable to live up to new external expectations. Over time, you’ll gradually adopt this new identity which will influence your decisions based on the identity model of choice (March, A Primer on Decision Making). Basically, you’ll start to wonder “What would a UX’er like me do in this situation?” on a daily basis.
Retain
Simply reading on a day to day basis will not be enough to optimize learning. Here are some methods to help you retain knowledge.
- Physically annotate your books. Buy or find a highlighter, a good pen, and a sturdy notebook. As basic as it is, highlighting information that you want to remember and writing down new terminology will significantly increase retention. I’ve learned through experience that it forces me to try and understand information instead of glazing over the unfamiliar.
- Take end-of-chapter review notes with Trello/Evernote/etc. A friend once recommended me to read The Lean Startup. After reading it he gave me a pop quiz, and to my dismay I couldn’t remember how to answer it on the spot. I read it again with physical annotations, only to fail his pop quiz for the second time. On the third try, I used his method of recording notes digitally. Needless to say, I passed with flying colors. If there’s a book full of information you want to be able to access on the spot, I’ve found that keeping chapter-by-chapter reviews on Trello have been invaluable. Check out my own reading board here.
- Verbally share what you’ve learned. Talk to a local design community or UX mentor. Try and put together a deck of what you’ve learned and teach someone who’s interested in the subject. If there’s anything you don’t understand, mark it with a sticky note and reach out to a design mentor to have a conversation over it. Adding on a social component to learning is fundamental to retention and mastery.
Internalize
“The truth is that learning to become a designer is a process of never ending ‘becoming.’ One doesn’t stop becoming a designer when one turns to ‘being’ a designer in the first place.” Nelson, The Design Way
Building habits and retaining knowledge is only the outer gate into a design-orientated career. Learning never stops in our field of practice because contexts are always changing. Consequentially, one of the most important parts of becoming a UX designer is internalizing learning as a calling. Learning is a critical responsibility that enables us to build better products that impact the lives of the people we are designing for. This is something you will have to discover through your own experiences.
Next: “The importance of a design community, and how to find it”
Previously: “Dispelling popular UX learning myths”
~$350 Book List
Curiosity Level: $30.61
Creative Confidence $17.69
Answers if you can be a designer, and how you can start thinking like one.
The Design of Everyday Things $12.92
Introduction to why UX matters and human centered design.
Introductory Level: $188.84
Don’t Make Me Think $35.37
A very approachable introduction to usability on the web.
The UX Book $77.85
Excellent high-level overview of everything UX.
About Face $28.04
Provides introductory HCI guidelines, goal-directed project planning, and how to use a persona the right way.
Designing with the Mind in Mind $47.58
Explains the cognitive psychology reason behind many industry standard heuristics.
Practical Level: $114.49
Observing the User Experience $24.40
When and how to do user research.
Handbook of Usability Testing $41.56
How to conduct a usability test.
Designing for the Digital Age $48.53
Step by step guide to goal-directed design.
Extracurricular Readings (Optional)
These are books that I have found to be useful as supplements to heavier academic material. I’ve found it to be more than manageable to read and annotate one textbook while leisurely reading one the following books below.
The Design of Business $17.42
Good introduction to design thinking and its value in business.
Nudge $11.55
Explains the importance of choice architecture and deliberate design.
Thinking Fast and Slow $10.69
Thorough vocabulary lesson on the judgments, choices, and thoughts of human beings.
Renegade Dreams $16.16
An engaging case for empathy and understanding the full context through an ethnographic study of gangland Chicago.
Set Phasers on Stun $23.72
A mind-teasing and morbid series of disaster stories surrounding poor design decisions.
The Atomic Chef $22.43
The spiritual successor of Set Phasers on Stun.
Hooked $14.18
A light and eye-opening read into designing habits and engagement.
The Lean Startup $14.97
How to design learning experiments to bring a startup to success.
Evil By Design $32.33
How to use the seven deadly sins to manipulate your users.
How to Make Sense of Any Mess $25.00
A simple book on how to design good information architecture.
Universal Principles of Design $22.97
The ultimate design book for the bathroom. An encyclopedia of universal design principles laid out aesthetically page by page.
