Darren Hood’s Living, Breathing User Experience Book Recommendation List

by Darren Hood

Last updated 3/19/24

After 20+ years of being in the business mainstream, a wealth of fantastic books have been written about things related to UX. While the quality of information presented in books has decreased over the years, great UX content has a very long shelf life.

For my first official Medium post, I’ve decided to share my user experience book recommendation list. Many are older, but some are newer. All, however, contain a wealth of information that will benefit anyone that’s serious about increasing, improving, or sharpening their UX acumen. Also, for the record, the list is purposely disorganized. Wards off lazy people. ;-)

Happy reading and enjoy your adventure!

• The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience
• Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
• The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
• Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology
• Universal Methods of Design:100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions
• 101 Theses On Design: And Other Essays On the Design of Digital Things
• Quantifying the User Experience: Practical Statistics for User Research
• The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond
• About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
• Human Factors for Informatics Usability
• Customers Know You Suck: Actionable CX Strategies to Better Understand, Attract, and Retain Customers
• Microinteractions
• Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines
• Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights
• Multiscreen UX Design: Developing for a Multitude of Devices
• How to Make Sense of Any Mess: Information Architecture for Everybody
• Practical Web Analytics for User Experience: How Analytics Can Help You Understand Your Users
• Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond
• Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research
• A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making
• Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences
• Mental Models
• Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture
• Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change
• Communicating the User Experience: A Practical Guide for Creating Useful UX Documentation
• Information Anxiety 2
• Information Architects
• Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design
• Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
• Interaction Design: Beyond Human — Computer Interaction
• User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product
• Interview Techniques for UX Practitioners: A User-Centered Design Method
• Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
• Mobile Usability
• Information Design
• Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything
• Prioritizing Web Usability
• Simple and Usable Web, Mobile, and Interaction Design
• Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines
• The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites (2nd Edition)
• Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning
• 100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
• GUI Bloopers 2.0, Second Edition: Common User Interface Design Don’ts and Dos
• Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience
• Usable Usability: Simple Steps for Making Stuff Better
• The Design of Everyday Things
• 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter)
• The Order of Things: Hierarchies, Structures, and Pecking Orders in our World
• Designing Interfaces
• Delta CX: The Truth About How Valuing Customer Experience Can Transform Your Business
• The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems
• Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action
• Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services
• Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web
• Mobile Design Pattern Gallery, Color Edition
• Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points
• The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction

Supplemental List (or “Off the Beaten Path”)

Here’s a new, supplementary list of books that are indirectly related, but applicable to the world of UX and UX management:

• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
• Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
• The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable
• Navigating the Politics of UX: Strategies and Stories from 40 Years in the Trenches
• Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable…About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business
• The Kaizen Pocket Handbook
• User Experience Management: Essential Skills for Leading Effective UX Teams
• Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers
• The Accidental Creative: How to be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice
• Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others

About Darren

Darren Hood is a 28+ year UX practitioner with a broad professional footprint that spans several types of B2B and B2C operations. In addition to having served as a UX manager, individual contributor, and freelancer in the business world, Darren serves or has served as an adjunct professor for such institutions as Michigan State University, UCLA, Brandeis University, Lawrence Tech University, Kent State University, and Harrisburg University. He is also one of the authors featured in “97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know.” He also regularly speaks at conferences and mentors people around the world.

You can hear more from the Darren by checking out the KaizenUX Medium page, the KaizenUX YouTube channel, or listening to The World of UX with Darren Hood wherever podcasts are available.

Visit KaizenTees to check out my UX ≠ UI merch.