From the blog of Julie Blitzer, UX Strategist and Interaction Designer—
Ever since I started speaking and teaching others about UX, I have been asked the follow up question “Where can I learn more?” Until you can get your feet wet with your first few projects and workshops, it’s a great idea to start reading in your free time. Here’s my list of recommended books that I’ve sent to many friends who reach out for advice.
The best approach is to start reading the blogs a few hours a week (the posts tend to be pretty long), and dig in to the books when you can.
See a more comprehensive list of what I’m reading and have read on Goodreads.
If you are in a big city with an active UX community, find out if UX Book Club has a chapter in your area. (Hint: The NYC Chapter can be found on Meetup.)
Books
Here are 10 books to start learning UX, recommended in this order:
- The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman
- The Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garrett
- A Project Guide to UX Design, Russ Unger & Carolyn Chandler
- Don’t Make Me Think AND Rocket Surgery Made Easy, Steve Krug
- Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Peter Morville & Louis Rosenfeld
- Communicating Design, Dan M. Brown
- Observing the User Experience, Mike Kuniavsky
- About Face 3, AlanCooper
- Designing Web Interfaces, Theresa Neil
- 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, Susan Weinschenk
Skill-specific books
- Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski
- Card Sorting, Donna Spencer
- Mental Models, Indi Young
- Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson
- The User is Always Right, Steve Mulder (personas)
There are several other great books that are skill-focused published by Rosenfeld Media.
Also see Whitney Hess’ list: So you wanna be a user experience designer – Step 1: Resources
Blogs
- 52 Weeks of UX – Josh Porter & Josh Brewer
- 90 Percent of Everything – Harry Brignull
- Adaptive Path – Leading UX consultancy founded by Jesse James Garrett, Indi Young, Mike Kuniavsky, etc.
- Boxes and Arrows – Peer-reviewed journal/group blog for Information Architecture
- Co. DESIGN – Fast Company’s design blog, often focused on business and innovation
- Elisabeth Hubert – Great commentary on the industry and techniques. Freelance UX consultant in NYC
- erova – Chris Avore, Managing Director, Product Design at NASDAQ OMX, former freelance UX designer, NYC/NJ
- everydayUX Morsels – Alex Rainert, Head of Product at Foursquare, reposts his favorite reads on a weekly basis
- findability.org – Peter Morville, “father of IA”, author of “Polar Bear Book” and leading expert on Search
iA (Information Architects) – UX consultancy in Zurich & Tokyo. Big type thought leaders, especially in data viz - Johnny Holland – International group blog edited by lead designers at Fabrique Communication & Design. Great conference calendar and podcast. No longer active, but worth reading the archives
- Konigi – Michael Angeles, Dir of UX for Balsamiq. His sketching and UX templates are a great resource
- Little Big Details – Crowd-sourced inspiration for UI easter eggs and features
- LukeW – Luke Wroblewski, leading UX designer and author
- Method – UX design firm that does a lot of work beyond the browser
- Pleasure and Pain – Whitney Hess, UX consultant (freelance and Happy Cog Studios) in NYC. Often writes about startups and working as a freelancer
- poetpainter – Stephen P. Anderson, UX consultant and author of Seductive Interactions
- Semantic Foundry – Will Evans, Managing Director of TLCLabs, expert on Lean UX and agile
- Smashing Magazine UX – lots of round ups with resources and how-to articles
- UIE Brain Sparks – Jared Spool/group blog. Also get the podcasts.
- Usability News – UK-based news site
- UX Booth – Group blog that tends to be more practical
- UX Magazine – Peer-reviewed articles
- UX matters – Drills deep into skills, less big picture.
UbiquityLab
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General Assembly Instruction
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GLAAD
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ArbitrationLaw.com
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New York State Senate
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