Best books for UX Designers
User experience from principles to practice to practice leadership. The first set teaches usability, how everyday objects fail people, how people actually think and how to do research cheaply. The build set adds interviewing, collaborative and lean ways of working, interaction design depth, defending design decisions and inclusive design. The lead set covers design organisations, professional practice and continuous discovery.
12 books in 3 stages, about 2,970 pages (at least 74 hours of reading). The notes are ours, with no ratings or sales claims.
How to choose your books
A short method, so you read the right book for where you are instead of the longest list.
Find your stage
Getting started · 4 books
Usability and people: why designs confuse users, how people think and how to research without a research team.
Jump to this stage ↓Doing the job · 5 books
Daily practice: interviewing users, working with teams, designing interactions, explaining your decisions and designing for people who are usually excluded.
Jump to this stage ↓Senior and leading · 3 books
Running design: structuring design teams, practising the profession with confidence and building ongoing discovery into a team.
Jump to this stage ↓
If you are unsure, start one stage lower than you think. Books in a later stage assume the working knowledge the earlier ones give you.
Begin with one book
Our starting pick
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
by Steve Krug · 2000
It is short, readable and changes how you look at every interface. It is the quickest route to the core of usability.
See the book ↓Then pick by your situation
Choose the next book by the problem in front of you, not by its place in the list.
If you have no research budget but need evidence
read Just Enough Research (getting started)
If stakeholders keep overriding your design decisions
read Articulating Design Decisions (doing the job)
If you are leading or building a design team
read Org Design for Design Orgs (senior and leading)
Set a time budget
| Stage | Books | Pages | Reading | At 3 hrs a week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Getting started | 4 | ≥ 830 | ≥ 21 hrs | ≥ 7 wks |
| Doing the job | 5 | 1,580 | 40 hrs | 13 wks |
| Senior and leading | 3 | 560 | 14 hrs | 5 wks |
| All 3 stages | 12 | ≥ 2,970 | ≥ 74 hrs | ≥ 25 wks |
Treat this as a ceiling, not a target. Read one book at a time, apply it, then move on; read reference-style books in sections. Totals are approximate.
Judge any book before you buy it
Age
This list runs from 1988 (The Design of Everyday Things) to 2021 (Continuous Discovery Habits). Older books earn their place by teaching principles that do not change. For tools and platforms, buy the latest edition.
Level
Check the stage before the title. A book from a later stage will make sense only once you have faced the problems it solves.
Format
The longest book here, About Face, runs about 720 pages. Read very long books as references: pick the chapter that matches the problem you have.
Fit
Ask what you will do differently the week after you finish. If you cannot answer, the book is for a different moment. Come back to it when the situation arrives.
Getting started
Usability and people: why designs confuse users, how people think and how to research without a research team.
Start hereDon't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
by Steve Krug · 2000
~220 pages~6 hrs to read
A short, funny primer on why people scan, guess and muddle through screens, and how to design for that. Read it in your first weeks, before you have opinions about layout.
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The Design of Everyday Things
by Don Norman · 1988
~370 pages~9 hrs to read
Affordances, signifiers, feedback and the gap between how a thing works and how people think it works. The vocabulary every design critique draws on.
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100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
by Susan Weinschenk · 2008
~240 pages~6 hrs to read
Short chapters on perception, memory, attention and motivation, each tied to a design decision. Good for the 'why does this work' questions juniors get asked in reviews.
View book →Just Enough Research
by Erika Hall · 2013
A practical guide to running interviews, observation and quick usability checks without a research team. Read it before your first project that has no research budget.
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Doing the job
Daily practice: interviewing users, working with teams, designing interactions, explaining your decisions and designing for people who are usually excluded.
Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, 2nd Edition
by Steve Portigal · 2013
~140 pages~4 hrs to read
How to run a user interview: asking open questions, handling silence, and turning transcripts into insight. Pick it up when you start running sessions yourself.
View book →Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams
by Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden · 2013
~260 pages~7 hrs to read
Frames design work as hypotheses to test with small experiments instead of large specs. Useful for designers on agile product teams who need to show evidence, not just mockups.
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About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin, Christopher Noessel · 1995
~720 pages~18 hrs to read
A deep reference on goals, personas, interaction patterns and desktop, mobile and web idioms. Read it in chunks as you take on bigger, more complex interfaces.
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Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience
by Tom Greever · 2015
~280 pages~7 hrs to read
How to explain and defend design choices to managers, engineers and executives without getting pulled into taste arguments. Most useful once you are presenting your own work.
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Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design
by Kat Holmes · 2018
~180 pages~5 hrs to read
Shows how designs exclude people when they are built around a narrow idea of the user, and gives a practical way to design for the mismatch. Read it when you start owning flows end to end.
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Senior and leading
Running design: structuring design teams, practising the profession with confidence and building ongoing discovery into a team.
Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams
by Peter Merholz, Kristin Skinner · 2016
~180 pages~5 hrs to read
Covers how design teams are structured, staffed, leveled and embedded in a company. Read it when you move toward leading designers or setting up a team.
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Design Is a Job
by Mike Monteiro · 2012
~140 pages~4 hrs to read
Blunt advice on contracts, client relationships, presenting work and taking responsibility for what you ship. For designers moving into senior roles or running their own engagements.
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Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value
by Teresa Torres · 2021
~240 pages~6 hrs to read
A weekly routine for interviewing customers and testing ideas alongside product and engineering partners. Read it when you want design to shape what gets built, not just how it looks.
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Frequently asked questions
Which book should a UX Designer read first?
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug. It is short, readable and changes how you look at every interface. It is the quickest route to the core of usability.
Do I need to read all 12 books?
No. The list is a menu, not a syllabus. Find your stage (getting started: 4, doing the job: 5, senior and leading: 3), begin with one book (we suggest Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability), then pick the next book by the problem you are facing at work. Come back to the others when the situation they cover arrives.
How long does it take to read these books?
The 11 books with a known page count add up to about 2,970 pages, roughly 74 hours at 1.5 minutes a page. At three hours a week that is about 25 weeks; at six hours a week, about 12. The list is meant to be read over time, one book at a time, not in one run.
Are these books up to date?
They range from 1988 (The Design of Everyday Things) to 2021 (Continuous Discovery Habits). Older titles are included because they teach principles that have not changed; for tools and platforms, we favour recent editions. Check the edition before you buy.
Related reading
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