Don’t Make Me Think is still one of the best books to introduce people to UX design and we recommend it to UI UX designers regularly. At the same time, the right UX design tools will help you master the craft of creating a smooth and seamless user experience across product development. From research and user testing to wireframing, testing, and beyond, they ensure you have all the elements to get to the finish line. Hooked by Nir Eyal is a UX bible that explores the psychology behind creating products that form habits. Eyal introduces the ‘Hook Model,’ a four-step process designed to build products that users engage with repeatedly.

Instead, The Design of Everyday Things is a deep dive into human behavior, psychology, ergonomics, and research. The key takeaway from this UX design book is that all design should be user-centered at it’s core. The Design of Everyday Things was republished in 2013 and to include updated best practices and examples of user ui ux design books experience design principles in action. The 2013 edition is 370 pages long and a brand-new introductory chapter written by the author. Many of the best practices and design principles in Don’t Make Me Think may sound like common sense, but you’d be surprised how often they are overlooked by even experienced designers.

Best UX Design Books Every Designer Should Read in 2024

Now, when I’m venturing into any new subject, the first thing I do is check some books. It was always practice over theory for me, and I used my experience for everything that might require a bit of information. With a new design principle every few pages, all you have to do is reference a page you want to know more about. Smashing UX Design is a book that takes an in-depth look into UX. He is an old stager in the online business with 20 years of experience as an online marketer, conversion rate optimizer and UX strategist.

Chances are you’re often doing this subconsciously — this is the power of habit-forming products, and it’s a powerful and scary development in the world of user experience design. If you’re new to UX design or an experienced UI UX designer looking to brush up on your UX design skills and UX design process, this book is a good idea and covers pretty much everything you need. The field of user experience (UX) design has grown significantly in popularity over the last few years and continues to grow rapidly. More and more businesses are focusing on improving web usability and the user experience of their websites, mobile apps, and products. Many people won’t consciously think about the overall user experience, but bad UX will hurt your brand and product.

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As the title suggests, «Simple and Usable Web, Mobile, and Interaction Design» is a practical guide to achieving simplicity in UI design. It focuses on removing, organizing, concealing, and displacing features and UI elements to enhance the user experience. Nodder’s work unravels the psychological aspects used in persuasive design techniques. The book dissects real website examples and displays how companies (and designers)  leverage UI design patterns and human psychology to trick people for commercial advantages. «UI is Communication» is a practical guide that focuses on UI design as an objective communication tool rather than aesthetics.

It highlights the importance of choosing the right participants, crafting effective tasks, and maintaining neutrality during the process. Krug offers a comprehensive roadmap to conduct effective user research. While not solely focused on UX design, “Sprint” offers a structured approach to problem-solving and ideation that is highly relevant to the field. The authors provide a step-by-step guide to running a five-day design sprint, which can be immensely beneficial for teams looking to rapidly prototype and validate ideas. This book introduces valuable techniques for collaborative design and user testing within a tight timeframe.

Best books for advanced UX designers

For those just beginning their journey or seasoned professionals looking to refine their skills, our range of courses caters to all levels. Embark on your learning adventure with our beginner UX courses today. Giles Colborne presents four strategies (remove, hide, organize and displace) to achieve this simplicity. The book emphasizes that products that are the simplest to use often win customers. Don Norman’s «The Design of Everyday Things» underscores the importance of user-centered design – a concept he helped popularize.

Understanding your users will benefit the quality of your design considerably. This book will help you with just that; understanding your users. It does so by taking a closer look at how users work and perceive things.

Best UI/UX Books that Every Designer Should Read

These are the books that I frequently recommend to other UX designers, and anyone interested in learning about UX design. Steve, the author of this book, spent ten years as a usability consultant, helping his clients make their products easier to use. He figured that if he could explain how he does it, more people could do it, and then, the products they built would be better. This book is perfect for developers, designers, agile team leaders, writers, editors, CEOs, marketers, and anyone with UX in their job title.

You could be working on different areas of user experience and might not have experience actually building a product. Here are user experience books that you might wanna give a read as an experienced UX designer. It is not too often every user experience designer finds themselves in a team of extremely adept and talented designers. The book revolves around physical products rather than digital ones, but it still manages to set out practical examples for the principles of cognitive psychology. I will be updating this reading list whenever I see new UX books that I think will help you become a UX designer.

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The book is quite practical and for those new to this methodology, it’s definitely a great start on learning a different process and mindset for development. The sheer craft, diligence, empathy, and user research that goes into designing great Apple products is mind-blowing. We have Creative Selection on our list of best UX books because it will inspire you to think differently about your design process. Originally published as a toolkit,  Design with Intent offers a more nuanced approach to behavioural design, based around designing and researching with people rather than “for” them.

• Chances are you’re often doing this subconsciously — this is the power of habit-forming products, and it’s a powerful and scary development in the world of user experience design.
• «Designing with the Mind in Mind» explores perceptual and cognitive psychology and how it can inform effective UI design.
• ClickUp’s UX Roadmap Template helps you visualize product progress, align teams around milestones, and prioritize ideas based on business needs and user behavior.
• This is one of the best books to read on UX design because it focuses on the relationship between target audiences and product design and how you, as a designer, can design with the user in mind.

It’s short, loaded with pictures and examples, information is condensed and written in a funny way. But even it is an old book and many designers would say the web has changed so much from 2013, there are a lot of people still saying it should be read by anyone working on web designing. The material gives a cursory foundation for new designers and those looking for transition to web/app design. Product Managers and web or app developers will also enjoy this book. Introduction to Design Thinking for UX Beginners by Uijun Park was published in 2023, making it one of the newest UX design books on this list. We’ve added it because it’s a perfect introduction to the field of UX design.

The best thing a seasoned UX designer can do to keep up with trends that are being adopted by all companies rapidly is, well, give the book a read. Whether it is lean startups, lean UX, or any other agile project, they’re here to stay. What Laura Klein does with Build Better Products is set out a framework for product management that takes all aspects of creating a successful product into account.