The $20-30 investment is worth it in the long-term if it improves your game by just 0.1%. We’ve picked out the best of the best and regularly update this post. Landing Page Hot Tips by Rob Hope is an insanely good investment for strengthening your web design skills. Rob runs a popular web design curation site and newsletter called One Page Love, and knows a thing or two about what makes a good landing page. The Design Manual by Adrian Kuleszo is one of the largest ebooks on our list at more than 770 pages long! It’s also the only ebook on our list that focuses specifically on how to design beautiful mobile apps for iOS and Android.
He also runs a popular YouTube channel, UI Adrian, where he teaches designers how to get started designing in Figma. UI Design Systems Mastery is a UI design and design systems ebook written by Marina Budarina. Marina is well-known in the design community and on Instagram where she shares useful UI design tips and resources.
Can I teach myself UX design?
Though reviewers seem to agree that it could’ve been an easier read, the book still serves its value. And that makes all the difference because he doesn’t go into theory, long references, or incomprehensible methodology when talking about UI design. Though if you are looking at the book from a totally practical outlook and you want it to direct you into doing something material, you might be disappointed.
This e-book, published in 2009, offers timeless insights into the world of UX design. It contains anecdotes and advice from 42 UX professionals and provides a holistic view of the field. This book provides a detailed, hands-on approach to user research. Marsh discusses the optimal timing for research implementation and showcases how a deep understanding of users can improve product and service design. In this book, Evans links cognitive psychology with UX design principles.
Our favourite quote from Universal Principles of Design
👉 You might be a CEO looking to understand the logic behind what your designers presented to you. As user-centered design becomes more and more critical in today’s digital world, a beginner designer, a CEO, or even a user like any of us may be interested in UI design. Putting all that aside, there are so many good books for UI designers-to-be, UI design experts, and even for those who simply want to understand UI design a little better. According to the book’s author, all good strategies are alike; each bad strategy is bad in its own way. That means you can learn to become a good strategist from Hannibal, Steve Jobs, and Howard Schultz.
- The User Experience Team of One brings together a variety of different procedures and is quite explanatory in describing each process.
- Then you’d have to start with some primary sources on user experience, graphic design, and cognitive psychology.
- Steve Krug presents a common-sense approach to mobile and web usability with his engaging writing style.
- It clearly explains why design decisions are made in UI design and the design thinking behind them.
This book imparts wisdom without prescribing a specific framework. It’s a guide that gives you a firm grasp of what you need to know and what you should be cautious about in UX design. It’s gained ui ux design books considerable popularity for being a reliable companion in challenging times for UX designers. This e-book emphasizes the importance of truly understanding UX beyond the surface level.
Find any other useful UI design books?
This was a light read for me, but that could be because I have no desire to become a product manager, so I wasn’t really invested. If you’re experienced in usability testing, this book is a good refresher. If you’re just starting out, this book will give you the rundown on the basics. In my opinion, this is one of the easiest reads on this topic, with its 150 pages packed with practical information and tips. And Krug’s straightforward writing style makes it even more digestible. “Laws of UX” provides an in-depth examination of the relationship between psychology and user experience design.
Because it’s primarily written from a developer’s point-of-view, it explains concepts clearly and suggests common sense tactics to make your design more user friendly. I particularly appreciate its “no bullshit” approach to designing interfaces. It clearly explains why design decisions are made in UI design and the design thinking behind them.
Design systems by Invision
It will teach you to think of your customers as the main character in your story and how to talk about your brand so that they will listen. Because customers don’t care about your story, they care about their own. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it. Great leaders in any team can get things done and create sustainable change over long periods of time because they inspire others to reach their goals. If you’re a great leader, you’ll create loyal followers that will stick with you through difficult challenges.
Still, the author presents them from a new or insightful perspective that even experienced designers may not have considered. Also, sometimes you just need to hear common sense ideas laid out in an organized fashion to keep them in your awareness. As you explore these titles, you’ll gain insights into the nuances of user-centered design, learn strategies for creating intuitive and engaging interfaces, and discover ways to craft experiences that resonate with users. This book serves as an essential guide for those already versed in UX design and looking to integrate UX writing effectively into their workflows. It not only underlines the significance of UX writing but also provides practical insights to navigate the complexities of UX writing in the design process.
All my experts named the book that brightens their career path with its vivid vision, its practical tips, or its fire gags. There are a few points where the book becomes a bit preachy, especially around the discussions of social media and tech companies. Otherwise, this is an easy and short read from the infotainment genre. Still, like practitioners of various artistic fields, I believe UX designers can also learn a lot from their history. “Inspired” by Marty Cagan is catering to product managers, but product designers can also learn from it, thanks to information about various product risks, discovery, and other techniques.
You might already be wearing some of these hats, while other roles might be shared with product managers or developers. UI is Communication by Everett N McKay is a fantastic 378-page book originally published in 2013. The book aims to help designers gain practical knowledge through case studies that will teach them how to tackle design issues they frequently encounter. You’ve probably heard of the “80/20 Rule”, “Ockham’s Razor”, “Self-Similarity” and “Storytelling” in design. This book explains 125+ key design principles and concepts with visual examples applied in practice. Understanding how to design UI and web design that converts customers is one of the highest-leverage skills you can learn.
Best books for beginner UX designers
Thinking, Fast and Slow also reminds a bit of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s thinking in Antifragile. It dives into how the mechanisms of human thinking works, and how we’re lured into poor judgement, hopeless memory and bad decisions by our fast-thinking systems. Thinking, Fast and Slow reveals when we can and cannot trust our intuitions. Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art is the creatives equivalent of Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. It’s an ass-kicking manifesto on “breaking through blocks and winning our inner creative battles”. When you reach for your phone, does your finger ever reach for Instagram or Twitter without you consciously meaning to?
