10+ Book Recommendations by Steve Krug
Surveys That Work
Caroline Jarrett
Surveys That Work explains a seven-step process for designing, running, and reporting on a survey that gets accurate results. In a no-nonsense style with plenty of examples about real&ndashworld compromises, the book focuses on reducing the errors that make up Total Survey Error--a key concept in survey methodology. If you are conducting a survey, this book is a must-have.Finally! Caroline Jarrett (@cjforms)’s wonderful book on doing surveys is out. I like it so much that I even wrote the foreword (and I hate writing anything). If you’ve ever wanted to do a survey—or you want to do better surveys—buy it now! https://t.co/aW3tBUoUui
Surveys That Work
Caroline Jarrett
Finally! Caroline Jarrett (@cjforms)’s wonderful book on doing surveys is out. I like it so much that I even wrote the foreword (and I hate writing anything). If you’ve ever wanted to do a survey—or you want to do better surveys—buy it now! https://t.co/aW3tBUoUui
The Moderator's Survival Guide
Donna Tedesco
A resource for navigating your one-on-one user research sessions. Inside, find guidance for nearly 100 diverse situations (ranging from business-as-usual to tricky and sticky) that might occur during usability studies, contextual inquiries, or user interviews.@YaelBenDavid @EuroUXWriters @Microcopy_UX @elainetall For instance, if I'm teaching people how to do usability testing, I always point them toward The Moderator's Survival Guide by Donna Tedesco and Fiona Tranquada. Great book.
Letting Go of the Words
Janice Redish
"Learn how to have great conversations through your site or app. Meet your business goals while satisfying your site visitors' needs. Learn how to create useful and usable content from the master - Ginny Redish. Ginny's easy-to-read style will teach you how to plan, organize, write, design, and test your content"--@EuroUXWriters @YaelBenDavid @Microcopy_UX @elainetall Just to chime in: Ginny Redish's Letting Go of the Words is one of the three books I *always* recommend. (Be sure to get the 2nd edition.) https://t.co/EJdcXePLWG
The Mechanism of Mind
Edward de Bono
The Mechanism of Mind presents Edward de Bono’s original theories on how the brain functions, processes information and organises it. It explains why the brain, the ’mechanism’, can only work in certain ways and introduces the four basic types of thinking that have gone on to inform his life’s work, namely ‘natural thinking’, ‘logical thinking’,’ mathematical thinking’ and ‘lateral thinking’. De Bono also outlines his argument for introducing the word ‘PO’ as an alternative to the word ‘NO’ when putting lateral thinking into practice. Drawing on colourful visual imagery to help explain his theories and thought-processes, from light bulbs and sugar cubes to photography and water erosion, The Mechanism of Mind remains as fascinating and as insightful as it was when it was first published in 1969. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding of how the mind works and organises information – and how Edward de Bono came to develop his creative thinking tools.@LaMaliqi @uxnewsmag @jnd1er @NNgroup @Edward_deBono @lauraklein @mikekuniavsky @DameStephanie_ Wow. Cool to be on a list with Edward de Bono (and others, of course). I read his little-known Mechanism of Mind back in college, and some of the imagery still sticks with me (especially brain connections being formed like pouring hot water on a block of jello).
Forms that Work
Caroline Jarrett
Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability clearly explains exactly how to design great forms for the web. The book provides proven and practical advice that will help you avoid pitfalls, and produce forms that are aesthetically pleasing, efficient and cost-effective. It features invaluable design methods, tips, and tricks to help ensure accurate data and satisfied customers. It includes dozens of examples - from nitty-gritty details (label alignment, mandatory fields) to visual designs (creating good grids, use of color). This book isn’t just about colons and choosing the right widgets. It’s about the whole process of making good forms, which has a lot more to do with making sure you’re asking the right questions in a way that your users can answer than it does with whether you use a drop-down list or radio buttons. In an easy-to-read format with lots of examples, the authors present their three-layer model - relationship, conversation, appearance. You need all three for a successful form - a form that looks good, flows well, asks the right questions in the right way, and, most important of all, gets people to fill it out. Liberally illustrated with full-color examples, this book guides readers on how to define requirements, how to write questions that users will understand and want to answer, and how to deal with instructions, progress indicators and errors. This book is essential reading for HCI professionals, web designers, software developers, user interface designers, HCI academics and students, market research professionals, and financial professionals. *Provides proven and practical advice that will help you avoid pitfalls, and produce forms that are aesthetically pleasing, efficient and cost-effective. *Features invaluable design methods, tips, and tricks to help ensure accurate data and satisfied customers. *Includes dozens of examples -- from nitty-gritty details (label alignment, mandatory fields) to visual designs (creating good grids, use of color). *Foreword by Steve Krug, author of the best selling Don't Make Me Think!@davidhoos "Buy one of the two great books that are out there: Forms That Work by Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney, or Designing UX: Forms by Jessica Enders. And if you've waited too long to do that, try what I call cubicle testing." 2/3
Designing UX: Forms
Jessica Enders
A recent study found that on average, designing a form to have a great user experience almost doubled the rate of successful first-time completions. For example, Ebay made an additional $USD 500 million annually from redesigning just the button on one of their mobile form screens. More conversions, fewer dissatisfied users, better return on investment. Can you afford not to improve your forms' user experiences? This book will walk you through every part of designing a great forms user experience. From the words, to how the form looks, and on to interactivity, you'll learn how to design a web form that works beautifully on mobiles, laptops and desktops. Filled with practical and engaging insights, and plenty of real-world examples, both good and bad. You'll learn answers to common queries like: Where should field labels go? What makes a question easy to understand? How do you design forms to work on small screens? How does touch impact on form design? How long can a form be? What look and feel should the form have: skeumorphic, flat, or something else? What's best practice for error messaging?@davidhoos "Buy one of the two great books that are out there: Forms That Work by Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney, or Designing UX: Forms by Jessica Enders. And if you've waited too long to do that, try what I call cubicle testing." 2/3
Letting Go of the Words
Janice Redish
"Learn how to have great conversations through your site or app. Meet your business goals while satisfying your site visitors' needs. Learn how to create useful and usable content from the master - Ginny Redish. Ginny's easy-to-read style will teach you how to plan, organize, write, design, and test your content"--@marsinthestars If you have anything to do with writing or editing online, you've got to have "Letting Go of the Words" by Ginny Redish.
Death and Friends, A Discworld Journal
Terry Pratchett
There's nothing like a journal to get you thinking about life, the universe, and a Disc suspended by four elephants stood atop a giant turtle. And who better to help than Death, Sir Terry Pratchett's most enduring anthropomorphic personification? With space aplenty to keep note of your daily musings, express your wildest dreams, or write your life story, you'll be aided and abetted by Death's wisdom, witticisms and observations along the way. Fill the pages how you like, there's no wrong way to live a life. Or write a book. So COWER, BRIEF MORTAL, and always look on the bright side of Death.RIP Terry Pratchett: Some of my fondest memories are of reading his books with my son. What could be better than Death and The Luggage?
UX for Lean Startups
Laura Klein
Creating a great user experience doesn’t have to be a lengthy or expensive process. This hands-on book shows you how to use Lean UX techniques to do it faster and smarter. You’ll learn how to tighten the iteration loop, get more customer feedback, reduce the time it takes to get great products to market, and build something your customers will truly love. User Experience expert Laura Klein gets you right to work with specific tips on how to make design and research quick, flexible, and measurable enough to work in a Lean environment. Rather than bog you down with a high-level discussion of Lean UX, UX for Lean Startups offers a series of standalone chapters that let you concentrate on those areas most important to your startup. The advice Laura Klein provides in this book comes from more than 15 years of working with startups and building great user experiences.Shoot myself in the foot department: Laura Klein's UX for Lean Startups is a really good book. http://t.co/iS04qXhFY5 #UX #usability
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited
Steve Krug
Offers observations and solutions to fundamental Web design problems, as well as a new chapter about mobile Web design.Thank YOU! RT @irishbryan: "Don't make me think", must read for any startup employee has been revised, thanks @skrug http://t.co/LzSBXjwIAB
Rocket Surgery Made Easy
Steve Krug
Spells out an approach to usability testing that anyone can easily apply to his or her own website, application or other product, in a book that explains how to test any design, keep one's focus on finding the most important problems and fix the problems one finds using the author's "the least you can do" approach. Original.@simplyand @danachis Hey, wait a sec. If you read Rocket Surgery, you heard of The Handbook (pg 141). Like the notion of "leveling up" to it
A Web for Everyone
Sarah Horton
If you are in charge of the user experience, development, or strategy for a web site, A Web for Everyone will help you make your site accessible without sacrificing design or innovation. Rooted in universal design principles, this book provides solutions: practical advice and examples of how to create sites that everyone can use.Just shipped: A Web for Everyone, one of the 8 books I recommend in DMMT Revisited http://t.co/dE1XRTh9Ri http://t.co/lDGuT4C9nr
Eye Tracking the User Experience
Aga Bojko
Eye tracking is a widely used research method, but there are many questions and misconceptions about how to effectively apply it. Eye Tracking the User Experience—the first how-to book about eye tracking for UX practitioners—offers step-by-step advice on how to plan, prepare, and conduct eye tracking studies; how to analyze and interpret eye movement data; and how to successfully communicate eye tracking findings.Read the foreword I wrote for @agabojko's new book Eye Tracking the User Experience http://t.co/pHaLCTa6Vs then maybe buy a copy
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
Louis Rosenfeld
Discusses Web site hierarchy, usability, navigation systems, content labeling, configuring search systems, and managing the information architecture development process.@ptaoussanis Thanks, Peter. That's great to hear. I felt the same way about Lou Rosenfeld's Information Architecture for the WWW years ago.
Landing Page Optimization
Tim Ash
A fully updated guide to making your landing pages profitable Effective Internet marketing requires that you test and optimize your landing pages to maximize exposure and conversion rate. This second edition of a bestselling guide to landing page optimization includes case studies with before-and-after results as well as new information on web site usability. It covers how to prepare all types of content for testing, how to interpret results, recognize the seven common design mistakes, and much more. Included is a gift card for Google AdWords. Features fully updated information and case studies on landing page optimization Shows how to use Google's Website Optimizer tool, what to test and how to prepare your site for testing, the pros and cons of different test strategies, how to interpret results, and common site design mistakes Provides a step-by-step implementation plan and advice on getting support and resources Landing Page Optimization, Second Edition is a comprehensive guide to increasing conversions and improving profits.Highly recommended! Tim Ash just published the 2nd edition of Landing Page Optimization http://t.co/Ye1bVfqV http://t.co/g6tR9UqE