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Usability and Interface Design Books

January 24th, 2008 in How-To | 77 Comments

by Alexis Brion

Usability and interaction design are fields that are becoming more and more important for every design. Both fields consider the interactions between the user and a system; accordingly, it also applies to the interaction between users and web-sites. A product has more chances to be successful if it’s design makes emphasis on usability. Making a website easy to use and easy to understand has direct economical impact as, for example, it guides the users across the sites, helps user to successfully sign up for a service or to complete a checkout process.

We have selected excellent books about usability and interaction design, some provide the theory of user interface design, others have a number of precise examples of how the theory can be used in practice. All these books are prestigious, well-known and recommended by experts. They include the origins of user-friendly products, creation of personas, goal-directed design, information on how to conduct usability tests and much more.

Images are, as always, clickable and lead to the sites which have more information about the books.

10 Usability and Interaction Design Books

1. About Face 3. The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann and David Cronin
ISBN: 978-0470084113

Alan Cooper is a professional designer, specialized on software design, and all his knowledge is represented in this book. He makes emphasis on Goal-Directed Design, meaning that goals, not features, are the key to the product success. This technique is based on the use of personas and scenarios to conduct user research. Goals are explained in three categories, experience goals, end goals and life goals. This master piece has mostly theory but it also includes very good examples.

2. Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen, Hoa Loranger
ISBN: 978-0321350312

Jakob Nielsen, the maestro of Web usability, has been writing about usability since 1995. Nielsen and Loranger work at the Nielsen Norman Group. The book presents a good combination of theory and practical examples. It has clear, useful tips and well-documented “Dos & Don’ts”. As the title indicates, this book has been written considering the Usability from the practical point of view.

3. Designing the Obvious. A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design by Robert Hoekman, Jr.
ISBN: 978-0321453457

This is a small guide focused on web-site usability and web-based application usability. The entire book consists of precise concepts and examples. This heavily graphical and illustrated book could be a first introduction for web developers who are interested in this topic. Among covered subjects are building only whats necessary, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Supporting the user mental model is one of the most interesting concepts where the author proposes to consider designs from the user-centric point of view.

4. Don’t Make Me Think. A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
ISBN: 978-0321344755

Don’t Make Me Think is already the must-read book when it comes to Web usability. It has a number of colorful and humorous examples, including nice cartoons that deliver the message and bring the important observation from real life in the foreground. This relatively small book has the necessary basics, being a recommended first usability read for web designers. Steve Krug does a great work explaining his Laws of Usability, for example to “get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left”.

5. The Design of Sites. Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites by Douglas Van Duyne, James Landay, Jason Hong.
ISBN: 978-0131345553

The Design of Sites is a toolbox for every web-designer that wants to inspect and study usability and interaction design patterns. It is basically an excellent reference book with very good concise examples. The authors have divided the book in a collection of design patterns, giving clear hints and examples on how and when to use each of them.

6. The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
ISBN: 978-0465067107

Published many years ago, this book is already a usability legend. Norman writes about the importance of the user-centered design and how this concept can be applied to design of everything. Memorable chapters include “Design for Error”, “Simplify the Structure of Tasks” and “When All Else Fails, Standardize”. Donald Norman is one of the founders of the well known Nielsen Norman Group, pioneers in usability and user-centered design.

7. Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design by Jenifer Tidwell
ISBN: 978-0596008031

Designing Interfaces delivers what a book from O’Reilly usually offers, good content and quality printing. This book has well-illustrated examples on web applications, desktop software and mobile devices organized according to user interface patterns, each containing practical advices. A kind of “read it from beginning to end”, this book provides solutions for each problem a user interface could have.

8. Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices by Dan Saffer
ISBN: 978-0321432063

Designing for Interaction provides examples, patterns and guidelines for interaction design on the Web as well as suggestions for software applications and different electronic devices. Dan Saffer himself was working as a creative leader and interaction designer which is clearly illustrated in the way this book is written. Particular and unique are the short and clear real design case studies and the interviews with professional designers.

9. Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
ISBN: 978-0262134743

This book describes the origins of interaction design. Every chapter introduces the creation and development of successfully designed products, for example the mouse, the Mac, The Sims and the iPod. Interviews include the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Doug Engelbart and Bill Atkinson, involved in the creation of the mouse and desktop. Designing Interactions comes with a DVD containing interviews worth watching.

10. Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte
ISBN: 978-0961392116

Tufte’s books, and specially Envisioning Information, are the essential reads for every person trying to get a better understanding of usability and interaction design. In this book, the author explores different ways of visualizing data. The book has many colorful examples of good and bad data visualization with graphs, maps and charts. The book itself is beautifully printed and comfortable to read. Although it does not provide any examples on website design this book represents the basis of this science.

Alexis Brion is an interaction designer specialized in usability for the Web. He is the director of Design vs Art Design Agency and writes on usability, interaction and web design at the Design vs Art Blog.

Editor’s Pick

There are few more books we’ve come across over the last years. The ones listed below turned out to be life-savers and provided useful insights into the field of user interface design. The bottleneck is, however, that some of them aren’t that easy to read and require both patience and some prior knowledge in the field of HCI.

11. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction by Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers and Helen Shar
ISBN: 978-0471492788

Interaction Design from the academic point of view. This book comprises 15 densely packed chapters that integrate all of the various cognitive, social, and other issues that are germane to interaction design. The book provides a comprehensive look at the entire set of requirements involved with design. The authors show that there is much more to systems design than end-user requirements and CGI scripts. Effective HCI is a multi-disciplinary area including psychology, sociology, anthropology, information systems, and computer science. Highly recommendable for more advanced and sophisticated insights into the area of interaction design.

12. The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems by Jef Raskin
ISBN: 978-0201379372

“The book that explains why you really hate computers.” This book is sometimes quite hard to read and not that easy to understand as the author literally dives in into the cognitive nature of human beings. However the book is very appealing and thought-provoking. Falling somewhere between Norman’s The Psychology of Everyday Things and Shneiderman’s Designing the User Interface, Raskin’s book covers ergonomics as well as quantification, evaluation, and navigation. Raskin was the original creator of the Apple Macintosh project before Steve Jobs took over and has a background in technology and art, which gives him a unique perspective on usability.

13. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction by Ben Shneiderman, Catherine Plaisant
ISBN: 978-0321269782

This book, which is often considered as “the bible of UI”, provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of human-computer interaction. Struggling through sometimes rather complex choice of words, you learn practical principles and guidelines needed to develop high quality interface designs — ones that users can understand, predict, and control. It covers theoretical foundations, and design processes such as expert reviews and usability testing.

The book contains numerous examples of direct manipulation, menu selection, and form fill-in: chapters have examples from cell phones, consumer electronics, desktop displays, and Web interfaces.

14. Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology by Jonas Löwgren, Erik Stolterman
ISBN: 78-0262122719

The authors of Thoughtful Interaction Design go beyond the usual technical concerns of usability and usefulness to consider interaction design from a design perspective. The shaping of digital artifacts is a design process that influences the form and functions of workplaces, schools, communication, and culture; the successful interaction designer must use both ethical and aesthetic judgment to create designs that are appropriate to a given environment. This book is not a how-to manual, but a collection of tools for thought about interaction design.

Published in How-To, January 24th, 2008
Tags: books, interface, ui, usability

1.

viggy Q (January 24th, 2008, 8:16 am)

Wonderful collections!
But do the lists above have any sort of sequences for us to follow alone?
Thank you.
- Comment
2.

Chris (January 24th, 2008, 8:30 am)

This is a great list! I haven’t heard of “Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology” before, and will definitely check that one out. We constantly refer to Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think as we refine our own approach to web development and design. Back in 2003, we even wrote a review of our own Link [www.newfangled.com]. I also referred to it recently in a blog post about the dreaded “fold,” which you can read Link [www.newfangled.com]. Krug’s latest update to the book added some needed expansion, and I look forward to a 2008/2009 version…
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3.

chris (January 24th, 2008, 8:47 am)

great list, hope you do more book lists for diff. subjects like this in the future.

can never stop learning!
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4.

Raya (January 24th, 2008, 9:01 am)

It’s good to have a quick reference to that kind of books. As usual you wrote a great and useful article!
As viggy Q, I am confused - is this unsorted list of good books?
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5.

Raj (January 24th, 2008, 9:10 am)

Wow! Thank you so much for putting together such a comprehensive list of recommendations. I look forward to checking-out some of these books.
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6.

Doug (January 24th, 2008, 9:11 am)

Great list! There are a few of these that appear to just be good to have while others look like they’ come in handy while writing my dissertation!
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7.

Eoin (January 24th, 2008, 9:58 am)

Thanks. Some interesting reading there.

Jakob Nielsen sure does have a lot of practical advice - just dont forget to take some of it with a pinch of salt!
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8.

mTp (January 24th, 2008, 10:02 am)

Thank you for the list.

Bill Buxton’s “Sketching User Experiences” is on the top of my list as one of the most important interaction design books of today. This the 1st book in a long time that I was able to read (all the way through) and extract great nuggets for the strategy and practice of design.

Link [www.billbuxton.com]
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9.

Sam (January 24th, 2008, 10:08 am)

Assual great collection ! would like to see a list of e-books aswell….
like to try “Envisioning Information”
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10.

sir jorge (January 24th, 2008, 10:28 am)

i have at least 4 of those books
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11.

Kathiroly (January 24th, 2008, 12:28 pm)

I have never thought such books exist. I usually outsource my design. I should get one and read. Thanks for sharing the list with us.
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12.

Alexis Brion (January 24th, 2008, 12:35 pm)

@ Viggy and others: thanks for the comments. I guess this is an unsorted list, although you might notice that some have more theory than others that contain more practical examples. It’s your choice :)
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13.

Chris Vincent (January 24th, 2008, 1:22 pm)

oh, thanks mates….. now i’ll be reading for the next decade….
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14.

Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (January 24th, 2008, 2:30 pm)

Just for clarification: this list is indeed unordered.
- Comment
15.

Alan C (January 24th, 2008, 4:18 pm)

Note that at present the link for #13 (Shneiderman’s book) is using the URL for #1 (Cooper)
- Comment
16.

Creativepayne (January 24th, 2008, 7:08 pm)

I’ve read “Don’t make me think” and loved it. It’s a nice short book that has some very good perceptions of how people use the web. Some of the stuff seems obvious while reading, but at the same time I found myself realizing that I’ve ignored the obvious on occasion in order to make a site the way I wanted to, disregarding the view. BAD IDEA! So I definately recommend that book.

Can’t wait to check out some of the others.

Thanks
- Comment
17.

Dave (January 24th, 2008, 7:11 pm)

You guys always creep me out by posting articles that match what I’m currently researching… :P

another great one!
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18.

Gabriel Porras (January 24th, 2008, 8:02 pm)

I correct two ISBNs:

13. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction by Ben Shneiderman, Catherine Plaisant
The ISBN in Amazon: 978-0321197863

and

14. Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology by Jonas Löwgren, Erik Stolterman
The ISBN in Amazon: 978-0262622097

Great compilation! Thanks!!!
- Comment
19.

Digital Revolutions (January 24th, 2008, 9:14 pm)

Nice list of some pretty darn good books. Thanks!
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20.

Himanshu Kapoor (January 24th, 2008, 9:36 pm)

Thanks for this. I was looking for such books in market and you solved my problem.
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21.

gr8pixel (January 24th, 2008, 9:57 pm)

great post!
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22.

Joris Hens (January 25th, 2008, 1:44 am)

I read the book “The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman” when I was in highschool…it was one of the books we had to buy back then. While it doesn’t really focus on webdesign or interface design, it gives you some clear understanding of … well , like the title says… everyday things.

Nice list there, I’ll be sure to read some of the other books mentioned here!
- Comment
23.

Joost (January 25th, 2008, 1:50 am)

Great list guys, keep up the good work. While most of the books are available here at the office, i certainly did not read all of them.

Cheers.
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24.

peter gusztav (January 25th, 2008, 1:56 am)

wow, great article, I found an interesting comment that disagrees with it in a way, Link [www.opentopix.com]
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25.

Gerd Wippich (January 25th, 2008, 2:05 am)

@mTp – Thanks for the Bill Buxton link.
But how can someone write abook about “Sketching User Experiences” and then use MS Word to create a web site to promote this? The site looks crappy in Firefox and Safari on Mac OS, only IE renders well. But IE then again refuses to show the link to Amazon correctly… a good example of a bad example.
- Comment
26.

ikosoma (January 25th, 2008, 7:52 am)

Good List, but sometimes there is too less time for so many good books…

Some of my Favorites:

It is german, old and hard to read, but I like it:
Michael Herczeg: Software-Ergonomie. Grundlagen der Mensch-Computer-Kommunikation, Bonn: Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 3-89319-615-3

Something to get the basics of usability:
Cognitive Psychology a student handbook
Michael W. Eysenck and Mark T. Keane:
2005 Psychology Press, ISBN: 978-1-84169-359-0

Link [www.psypress.com]
- Comment
27.

Chris (January 25th, 2008, 8:03 am)

what is “books”?
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28.

Gabe (January 25th, 2008, 9:16 am)

“Optimization takes place in the mind, not on the page.”

“I am trying to use elements on the page to influence the visitors sequence of thought.”

“Intuition is not enough. It is not a substitute for testing. Intuition is a valuable aid in the testing process. It allows you to test valid treatments. Learning to develop the treatment to test however, is a bit of art.”

MarketingExpirements.com
Dr. Flynt McLaughlin is a genius.
This guy takes you a step back and looks at the bigger picture. You should def check him out.
- Comment
29.

Robert Hoekman, Jr. (January 25th, 2008, 9:38 am)

It’s an honor to have Designing the Obvious included in such a great list of books. Thanks very much for the support!
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30.

BuzzBop.com (January 25th, 2008, 10:12 am)

Great list!

I have read many of these and agree that #4 Don’t Make Me Think is a must read for beginners and veterans alike.
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31.

Kalpana Aravabhumi (January 25th, 2008, 1:34 pm)

Thank you for the essential list of books on UCD/Usability/IA/UX
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32.

Martin Voorzanger (January 26th, 2008, 3:04 am)

When it comes to mobile websites and mobile devices tailored to specific needs - what are the best books on interaction designs?
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33.

Vaclav Krejci (January 26th, 2008, 5:06 am)

Great collection.

I´ve written a book about interfaces too - it´s called “Adobe Photoshop: GUI design”. But because international publishers think, that they have already enough books, they refused it. Therefore, it won´t be avaible in english (for now only in my country). But I hope once I will find some publisher, and will be famous too ;)

If you want to know more about my book, visit Link []
- Comment
34.

Vaclav Krejci (January 27th, 2008, 5:03 am)

sorry for the bad link, the right is: Link [www.photoshopguidesign.com] Link [www.photoshopguidesign.com]
- Comment
35.

dr john (January 28th, 2008, 6:32 pm)

As usual, a great list of resources.
FIVE of these were on our university’s usability engineering modules’ booklist.
Norman and Krug as both very accessible (sic) for those new to the topic.
Keep up the great work guys.
- Comment
36.

Davide Bisconti (January 29th, 2008, 2:30 am)

Great Books !!
- Comment
37.

Dave Conrey (January 29th, 2008, 1:20 pm)

I had to do a double take on #2. Hoa Loranger is an acquaintance of mine and she never mentioned she co-authored a book with Jakob. I’ll have to pick that one up.
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38.

Jason (January 29th, 2008, 9:10 pm)

I’m excited and happy to see that my Professor’s (Erik Stolterman) book “Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology” made Editors Pick.

Very insightful on how a designer needs to reflect on the role that methods & techniques play in the design process.
- Comment
39.

Nibbler (January 31st, 2008, 3:40 am)

You make a post about books without ads to buy the books. That’s unique!
- Comment
40.

Alan Bucknam (January 31st, 2008, 1:41 pm)

Another book on Interface Design I’d recommend here is The Elements of User Experience, by Jesse James Garrett. It’s a great starting place and something to hand to clients when beginning the design process.
- Comment
41.

Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz (February 2nd, 2008, 3:51 am)

@Nibbler: it’s not about us earning money on selling some usability books. It’s about presenting excellent books - the books we strongly believe are useful - to our readers.
- Comment
42.

Tom Graham (February 4th, 2008, 2:57 pm)

I do love my University library, amazing what good books I can find there :) Good list
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43.

Lynne (February 6th, 2008, 3:35 pm)

A really good comprehensive list. Thanks!
- Comment
44.

web design cheltenham (February 14th, 2008, 8:09 am)

thanks for taking the to complile these, i have found these a great help. cheers
- Comment
45.

pravin (April 3rd, 2008, 8:14 pm)

No. 7 - Link [www.designinginteractions.com] is broken link, please remove it or update it.

Thanks for useful information!!
- Comment

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Usability and Interface Design Books

10 Usability and Interaction Design Books

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