humane machine

Required Reading for UI/UX Designers

Every now and then I’m asked what books I would recommend to a new user experience or user interface designer. So here’s a list of books that I’ve found useful throughout my career. To be honest these aren’t just for new designers even if you’re a seasoned vet there’s a lot of useful information in here!

This is a great place to start if you’re an inspiring user interface designer looking to get into the video game industry or software/web industry. The user experience stuff is going to be able to be directly applied more to software and web as it’s not as prevalent in the gaming industry yet. However that’s part of what my blog is about, figuring out how to use best practices in a practical way within the confines of game development.

In no particular order here are 12 books I highly recommend:

A Project Guide to UX Design | by Russ Unger & Carolyn Chandler
This is a probably one of the best user experience books out there focusing on practical application across the entire process.
Designing Interfaces | by Jenifer Tidwell
This is mostly aimed at software UI design, and some if it is a little dated. However the principles and best practices are still widely used, it’s a great reference as well.
Don’t Make Me Think | by Steve Krug
While this is largely focused on web design a lot of the principles within these pages are really great. It’s a short read, but full of good info. His practical approach the usability testing is really great.
Universal Principles of Design | by William Lidwell, Kritrina Holden, Jill Butler
This is a must read for everyone, designers, ui, graphic artist, etc.

When software drives design

For the skilled user interface and graphic designers out there (and even the un-skilled), it’s very easy for us to sit down in front of our weapon of choice and craft something great looking. Firing up Photoshop and playing with typography, color, textures, gradients, drop shadows etc. it’s easy to generate some nice looking results fairly quickly. It’s also pretty gratifying to have what looks like a pretty and cohesive design to show someone else after a few hours of work. But aren’t we missing something here?

I’ve done this before …

Humane Machine

… this time I’m mostly serious … definitely maybe.

I’ve created blogs in the past and never really stuck with them. For one reason or another I just never had the drive to keep up with posting (or reposting) and at the same time keep things interesting for someone reading, or myself for that matter. Plus I’m a primarily a user interface designer not a writer, I don’t do words. But, I’m willing to endure it if you are.

There are so many blogs out there on so many topics, along with microblogging, Facebook posts and all the rest. Why on earth would I bother at this point?