One of my mentees (I have three right now) said he had some time on his hands this Summer and was looking for good UX books to read ... I sigh heavily, because there is no shortage of good UX books to read. My bookshelves have titles by well-read authors like Nielsen, Norman, Tufte, Dumas, Krug, Gladwell, Pink, Csikszentmihalyi, and Roam. I have titles buy lesser-known authors, many whom I call friends, and many others whom I'll likely never meet. I have books on Excel pivot tables, typography, mental models, culture, accessibility, surveys, checklists, prototyping, Agile, Java, sketching, project management, HTML, negotiation, statistics, user research methods, six sigma, usability guidelines, dashboards, the effects of aging on cognition, UI design, and learning styles, among others ... many others.
So I feel the need to qualify any book recommendations with "it depends ...", because it depends on who I'm talking to, and what they are looking for. It's probably best that I also mention that the views expressed in this blog are mine, and may not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle. There. I'm glad I got that off my chest.
For that mentee, who will be graduating with his MS HFID + MBA from Bentley in the Fall, I'll recommend this book: Universal Principles of Design -- this is a great book, which in its first edition held "100 ways to enhance usability, influence perception, increase appeal, make better design decisions, and teach through design." Granted, the second edition expanded that number to 125, but when I first found this book, I felt like I'd discovered the Grail. Its research-based principles are all laid out in 2 pages each, with lots of pictures and good references. A must-have for the new grad.
Do I have recommendations for a book that will teach you how to conduct a usability test? Yes, three of them. To communicate what we do to management? Yes. To create personas? Yep -- two or three. Help you with UX in an Agile environment? You bet, I've got two I'd recommend. Create an excellent presentation? Uh hunh. Get buy-in from your team? Of course. There are a plethora of excellent UX books out there. But which ones I recommend ... well ... it depends.
