In this guide, you’ll find the must-read UX books, directing your attention to the most influential works in the field.
Recommended UX Books
This selection of books has been impactful in the UX community, providing a mix of educational, engaging, and inspiring content. They are well-suited for UX specialists looking to deepen their knowledge and refine their skills.
- About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
- Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
- Interviewing Users: Uncover Compelling Insights
- Don’t Make Me Think
- Think Like a UX Researcher: How to Observe Users, Influence Design, and Shape Business Strategy
- Designing Interfaces
- The Design of Everyday Things
- The Elements of User Experience
- Just Enough Research
- The User Experience Team of One
🐝 Note: Each book in our list has been given a normalized score out of 10, simplifying the process of comparison and selection for you. This scoring system is based on our survey of the UX community. You can learn more about the survey and its methodology here.
Top rated and most widely known books
Here’s a concise summary featuring the top five books that received the most recommendations in our survey. Additionally, we’ve included a section highlighting widely recognized titles among UX specialists who participated in our survey.
Books by Expertise
In this section, we’ve organized book recommendations by the years of experience of our surveyed UX specialists. We’ve selected three books for each experience level, supported by peers with similar expertise.
Recommended Book Selection
#1 About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
Source: Amazon
Score: 10.0/10
Authors: Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin, Christopher Noessel
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 53.66%
What is this book about?
This book is the key interaction design guide for the mobile era. It addresses mobile apps, touch interfaces, and screen size considerations. Essential for designers and developers, it offers the latest methods and examples for designing user-friendly mobile and consumer electronics interfaces. The book highlights the growing importance of design in meeting user expectations and remains a crucial resource in the evolving tech industry.
#2 Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
Source: Amazon
Score: 9.1/10
Authors: Jeffrey Rubin, Dana Chisnell
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 50.0%
What is this book about?
This handbook offers detailed guidance on usability testing for any product, from software to cellphones and refrigerators. It’s fully updated with current best practices, helping ensure your product meets customer expectations for ease of use. Learn to identify usability limitations, determine testing locations, and establish a test plan to achieve your product’s usability goals. This resource is essential for gaining a marketplace advantage through user-friendly products.
#3 Interviewing Users
Source: Amazon
Score: 8.91/10
Author: Steve Portigal
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 72.22%
What is this book about?
“Interviewing Users” serves as an essential resource for UX practitioners and non-design contributors, providing effective techniques to gather valuable information from users. Recommended for open source projects and product managers, it empowers individuals to ask the right questions and gain a deeper understanding of user needs, bridging the gap in UX research efforts.
#4 Don’t Make Me Think
Source: Amazon
Score: 8.88/10
Author: Steve Krug
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 73.17%
What is this book about?
In the last edition of “Don’t Make Me Think,” usability expert Steve Krug continues to provide insights into intuitive navigation and information design for web designers and developers. Known for its witty and commonsense approach, this book remains a trusted resource, now updated with contemporary examples and a new chapter on mobile usability. Whether you’re revisiting it or discovering it for the first time, “Don’t Make Me Think” is considered essential reading for web professionals worldwide.
#5 Think Like a UX Researcher: How to Observe Users, Influence Design, and Shape Business Strategy
Source: Amazon
Score: 8.68/10
Authors: David Travis & Philip Hodgson
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 66.67%
What is this book about?
“Think Like a UX Researcher” prompts readers to rethink conventional UX research, encouraging a broader perspective. This practical book helps you plan and execute effective UX research, advocate for action, and advance your career in UX. It provides actionable tools for UX researchers, designers, project managers, scrum masters, business analysts, and marketing managers, inspiring improved user experiences.
#6 Designing Interfaces
Source: Amazon
Score: 8.27/10
Author: Jenifer Tidwell
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 34.15%
What is this book about?
In “Designing Interfaces,” you’ll find design patterns that offer solutions for various platforms, including mobile apps, web applications, and desktop software. The book places importance on user understanding, logical software structure, user-friendly components, intuitive navigation, and improved visual design to enhance usability.
#7 The Design of Everyday Things
Source: Amazon
Score: 8.27/10
Author: Don Norman
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 85.37%
What is this book about?
In this book by Don Norman, he shares fundamental principles of meaningful design that remain relevant today. It addresses common usability challenges caused by poor product design and highlights the importance of user-centric design and cognitive psychology principles. The book offers practical guidelines for creating user-friendly products, focusing on the art of designing products that satisfy and delight customers.
#8 The Elements of User Experience
Source: Amazon
Score: 8.11/10
Author: Jesse James Garrett
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 48.78%
What is this book about?
“Elements of User Experience” by Jesse James Garrett serves as a reference for web and interaction designers worldwide. It underscores the significance of creating a cohesive user experience, addressing challenges posed by mobile devices and applications. Garrett provides clear explanations and illustrations covering user experience development, making it a valuable resource for interaction design.
#9 Just Enough Research
Source: Amazon
Score: 8.02/10
Author: Erika Hall
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 72.22%
What is this book about?
Erika Hall’s book focuses on practical research methods for immediate application, helping you discover competitive advantages, recognize biases, and understand research findings. Explore frameworks for research design, stakeholder and user interviews, quick testing methods, and quantitative data techniques.
#10 The User Experience Team of One
Source: Amazon
Score: 7.49/10
Author: Leah Buley
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
How many people in the survey knew this book? 41.46%
What is this book about?
“The User Experience Team of One” presents pragmatic strategies for optimizing UX with efficiency, making it a valuable resource for individuals and teams. Whether you’re the sole UX designer in your organization or looking to streamline UX practices, this book provides practical tools and insights to achieve more with limited resources, ultimately enhancing your internal programs and boosting your confidence in UX.
5 Best UX design books
In the upcoming section, you’ll find the top 5 books that were highly favored by UX designers. However, we won’t provide detailed descriptions of these books since they have already been mentioned in our general recommendations.
More worthwhile reads for UX specialists
Looking for more inspiration as a UX specialist? Dive into five recommended books from fellow UX specialists, offering valuable insights and specialized knowledge for your field.
#1
Source: Amazon
Author:
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
What is this book about?
This book offers an introduction to mixed research methods for applied researchers in various fields. It explores how quantitative and qualitative research can complement each other to strengthen research outcomes, providing clear examples and valuable insights for researchers.
#2
Source: Amazon
Author: Rob Fitzpatrick
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
What is this book about?
“The Mom Test” is a guide that provides practical advice to help you save time, money, and potential disappointments. It underscores the importance of avoiding biased opinions, like those from loved ones, when evaluating your business idea. Instead, the book highlights your responsibility to seek honest feedback and offers insights into the often tricky world of customer conversations. It’s a quick and informative read, making it an essential resource for those looking to understand how to validate business ideas through customer interactions.
#3
Source: Amazon
Author: Barry Schwartz
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
What is this book about?
In this book, the author examines our fascination with choices and how it can lead to stress, dissatisfaction, and regret. It talks about how everyday decisions, from buying things to life choices, have become more complicated due to too many options. We often think more choices are better, but too much choice can make us anxious, lead to unrealistic expectations, and even depression. The book explores when having too many choices can harm our well-being, making us question the decisions we make. It’s a simple read worth considering in our modern world.
#4
Source: Amazon
Author: Teresa Torres
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
What is this book about?
This book offers practical guidance for those without access to strong coaching, addressing key questions about understanding customer needs, improving products, and creating value. It introduces a sustainable approach to continuous discovery, emphasizing the balance between action and doubt. If you aim to create customer-loved products that also benefit your business, this book is a valuable resource by author Teresa Torres, an experienced coach in the field. Recommended by industry leaders, it helps build customer-centric product teams and habits.
#5
Source: Amazon
Author: Kathy Sierra
Where can I buy this book? Amazon
What is this book about?
This book is centered on the creation of successful users through cost-effective strategies often ignored by well-funded teams. It emphasizes the importance of every team member’s role in reducing dependence on luck and enhancing user experiences, both during and beyond product usage.
About our “Best UX research books” survey
What was the process behind our survey? We started by selecting books from various articles that recommended reading for UX specialists. This formed a shortlist that our respondents could assess. They had options to mark each book as ‘Not familiar’, ‘Would recommend’, ‘Indifferent’, or ‘Would not recommend’. Once the survey concluded, we analyzed these responses to draw our conclusions.
How our rating methodology works?
- In our approach to rating the books, we started by calculating the percentages of respondents who had either recommended it, expressed indifference to it, or not recommended it, disregarding the respondents who selected the “not familiar with” option.
- We then determined a net recommendation score for each book by subtracting the percentage of non-recommendations from the percentage of recommendations.
- This score effectively captures the overall sentiment toward each book, taking into account both positive and negative opinions.
- To make an easier comparison across the books, we normalized these net recommendation scores to a scale ranging from 0 to 10. The highest-ranked book was assigned a score of 10, and the scores for the other books were adjusted proportionally.
- This normalization process helps us present a clear, quantifiable, and easy-to-understand rating for each book, reflecting its relative standing among the survey respondents.
We believe this method provides a balanced view of the respondents’ preferences.
Where do our survey respondents come from?
We’re thrilled to report that 327 individuals from more than 40 countries chose to participate in our survey! A detailed look shows 48.8% were from the North America, followed by 36% from Europe, then 9.3% from Asia, 3.5% from South America, 1.4% from Africa and 0.8% from Australia and Oceania. The participants were from countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada, Argentina, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, among others. It’s fantastic to see such wide and diverse involvement! 😊
How much experience in UX field do our respondents have?
Lastly, we will examine the distribution of our respondents based on their levels of experience in the User Experience (UX) field. We’ll categorize them into four groups: less experienced UX specialists (those with under 2 years of experience), experienced UX specialists (with 2 to 5 years of experience), senior professionals in the UX field (having 5 to 10 years of experience), and seasoned UX experts (with over 10 years of experience).
🐝 Tip: Do you want to get in touch with people from the UX community but don’t know where to look? See our article Best 30 UX Communities and Groups to Join!
