We’re unashamed fans of books.
Real, paper, pick-me-up-and-flip-through-me books. Sure, we follow a ton of blogs, Twitter feeds, discussion forums and even online courses … but nothing beats an old-fashioned book for structured learning at your own pace on a lazy weekend afternoon.
This is our carefully curated collection of recommended reading. It includes titles that have helped us along the way. By reading from this collection you’ll be making solid progress on your path to UX mastery.
Also check out ‘Get Started in UX‘, the book we wrote for people establishing a career in UX.
Our top 10 recommended books:
In alphabetical order
| Title | Author | Category | Buy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People | Susan Weinschenk | Psychology |  |
 | Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change | Victor Papanek | Related | |
 | Don't Make Me Think | Steve Krug | Usability | |
 | Gamestorming: A Playbook For Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers | Dave Gray ,Sunni Brown and James Macanufo | Methods & Process | |
 | Interviewing Users | Steve Portigal | Research | |
 | Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience | Jeff Gothelf | Methods & Process | |
 | See What I Mean: How to use Comics to Communicate Ideas | Kevin Cheng | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | The Design of Everyday Things | Don Norman | Usability | |
 | The Elements of User Experience | Jesse James Garrett | Fundamentals |  |
 | The Moderator's Survival Guide: Handling Common, Tricky, and Sticky Situations in User Research | Donna Tedesco | Research | |
There are so many more influential and useful books in the UX canon. Here are the other books we have on our bookshelf:
All recommended books:
| Title | Author | Category | Buy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People | Susan Weinschenk | Psychology | |
 | A Practical Guide to Information Architecture (ebook) | Donna Spencer | Information Architecture | |
 | A Project Guide To UX Design | Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler | Methods & Process | |
 | About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design | Alan Cooper | Interaction | |
 | Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics | Brian Clifton | Analytics | |
 | Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories | Donna Spencer | Information Architecture | |
 | Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning | Dan M. Brown | Communicating UX | |
 | Communicating the User Experience: A practical guide for creating useful UX documentation | Richard Caddick & Steve Cable | Communicating UX | |
 | Content Strategy for Mobile | Karen McGrane | Mobile & Responsive | |
 | Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems | Hugh BeyerÊ&ÊKaren Holtzblatt | Research | |
| Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change | Victor Papanek | Related | |
 | Designing for Interaction | Dan Saffer | Interaction | |
 | Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-centered Products and Services | Kim Goodwin | Research | |
 | Designing Interactions | Bill Moggridge | Interaction | |
 | Designing Intranets: Creating Sites That Work | James Robertson | Intranets | |
 | Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions | Bill Scott | Interaction | |
| Don't Make Me Think | Steve Krug | Usability | |
 | E-Commerce Usability: Tools and Techniques to Perfect the On-line Experience | David Travis | Usability | |
 | Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things | Don Norman | Interaction | |
 | Envisioning Information | Edward Tufte | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | Everyday UX (ebook) | Luke Chambers & Matthew Magain | Careers | |
 | Forms That Work | Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney | UI Design | |
| Gamestorming: A Playbook For Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers | Dave Gray ,Sunni Brown and James Macanufo | Methods & Process | |
 | Get Started in UX: the Complete Guide to Launching a Career in User Experience Design (ebook) | Matthew Magain & Luke Chambers | Careers | |
 | Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design and Conduct Effective Tests, | Jeffrey Rubin | Usability | |
 | Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion | Robert B. Cialdini | Psychology | |
 | Information Anxiety 2 | Richard S Wurman | Information Architecture | |
 | Information Architecture for the World Wide Web | Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld | Information Architecture | |
| Interviewing Users | Steve Portigal | Research | |
 | Killer UX Design | Jodie Moule | Fundamentals | |
 | Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind | Gary Marcus | Related | |
| Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience | Jeff Gothelf | Methods & Process | |
 | Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content That Works | Janice Redish | Content & Copywriting | |
 | Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics, 2nd edition | Thomas Tullis & William Albert | Analytics | |
 | Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behaviour | Indi Young | Methods & Process | |
 | Mind Hacks: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain | Tom Stafford & Matt Webb | Related | |
 | Mobile First | Luke Wroblewski | Mobile & Responsive | |
 | Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces | Carolyn Snyder | Prototyping | |
 | Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences (or interactive ebook for iOS | Nancy Duarte | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | Responsive Web Design | Ethan Marcotte | Mobile & Responsive | |
 | Rocket Surgery Made Easy | Steve Krug | Usability | |
 | Seductive Interaction Design | Stephen P. Anderson | Interaction | |
| See What I Mean: How to use Comics to Communicate Ideas | Kevin Cheng | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | Sexy Web Design | Elliot Jay Stocks | Visual Design | |
 | Sketching User Experiences (workbook) | Saul Greenberg, Sheelagh Carpendale, Nicolai Marquardt and Bill Buxton | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design | Bill Buxton | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | Sketchnotes 2011 | Eva-Lotta Lamm | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps | Josh Clark | Mobile & Responsive | |
 | The Back of the Napkin | Dan Roam | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | The Basics of User Experience | Interaction Design Foundation | Fundamentals |  |
| The Design of Everyday Things | Don Norman | Usability | |
 | The Design of Sites (2nd Ed.) | Jason I. Hong | Visual Design | |
 | The Doodle Revolution (Read review) | Sunni Brown | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
| The Elements of User Experience | Jesse James Garrett | Fundamentals | |
 | The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction | Mads Soegaard & Rikke Friis Dam | Fundamentals | |
 | The Graphic Facilitator's Guide | Brandy Agerbeck | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood | James Gleick | Related | |
 | The Inmates Are Running the Asylum | Alan Cooper | Related | |
 | The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses | Eric Ries | Business & Strategy | |
| The Moderator's Survival Guide: Handling Common, Tricky, and Sticky Situations in User Research | Donna Tedesco | Research | |
 | The Mom Test: How to talk to customers and learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you | Rob Fitzpatrick | Research | |
 | The Non-Designer's Design Book | Robin Williams | Visual Design | |
 | The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design | John Pruitt & Tamara Adlin | Methods & Process | |
 | The Principles of Beautiful Web Design | Jason Beaird | Visual Design | |
 | The Shallows: How the Internet is changing the way we read, think and remember | Nicholas Carr | Related | |
 | The Sketchnote Handbook | Mike Rohde | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | The Usability Kit | Gerry Gaffney and Daniel Szuc | Usability | |
 | The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide | Leah Buley | Fundamentals | |
 | The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web | Steve Mulder | Methods & Process | |
 | The Visual Display of Quantitative Information | Edward Tufte | Sketching & Visual Thinking | |
 | There's Not an App for That: Mobile User Experience Design for Life | Simon Robinson, Gary Marsden and Matt Jones | Mobile & Responsive | |
 | Think First: My no-nonsense approach to creating successful products, powerful user experiences + very happy customers | Joe Natoli | Fundamentals | |
 | UI Is Communication: How to Design Intuitive, User Centered Interfaces by Focusing on Effective Communication (Read review) | Everett N. McKay | Fundamentals | |
 | Undercover User Experience Design | Cennydd Bowles & James Box | Fundamentals | |
 | Usability Engineering | Jakob Nielsen | Usability | |
 | User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product | Jeff Patton | Methods & Process | |
 | Web Analytics: An Hour A Day | Avanash Kaushik | Analytics | |
 | Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks | Luke Wroblewski | UI Design | |
 | What Every Intranet Team Should Know | James Robertson | Intranets | |
| What Every Intranet Team Should Know | James Robertson | Intranets | |
 | Just Enough Research | Erika Hall | Research | |
