Top Interaction Design books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Interaction Design books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Interaction Design

Understanding the concepts of Interaction Design starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design

The interaction design profession is blooming with the success of design-intensive companies, priming customers to expect "design" as a critical ingredient of marketplace success. Consumers have little tolerance for websites, apps, and devices that don't live up to their expectations, and the responding shift in business philosophy has become widespread. About Face is the book that brought int…

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Rocket Surgery Made Easy

It's been known for years that usability testing can dramatically improve products. But with a typical price tag of $5,000 to $10,000 for a usability consultant to conduct each round of tests, it rarely happens.
In this how-to companion to Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug spells out a streamlined approach to usability testing that anyone can easily a…

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The Design of Everyday Things

The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.

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Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction

A revision of the #1 text in the Human Computer Interaction field, Interaction Design, the third edition is an ideal resource for learning the interdisciplinary skills needed for interaction design, human-computer interaction, information design, web design and ubiquitous computing.
The authors are acknowledged leaders and educators in their field, with a strong global reputation. They brin…

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Designing Interfaces

Designing good application interfaces isnâ??t easy now that companies need to create compelling, seamless user experiences across an exploding number of channels, screens, and contexts. In this updated third edition, youâ??ll learn how to navigate through the maze of design options. By capturing UI best practices as design patterns, this best-selling book provides solutions to common design pr…

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Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

Emotions are inseparable from how we humans think, choose, and act. In Emotional Design, cognitive scientist Don Norman shows how the principles of human psychology apply to the invention and design of new technologies and products. In The Design of Everyday Things, Norman made the definitive case for human-centered design, showing that good design demanded that the user's must take precedence…

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Additional Interaction Design Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Interaction Design, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond

The Elements of User Experience cuts through the complexity of user-centered design for the Web with clear explanations and vivid illustrations that focus on ideas rather than tools or techniques. Jesse James Garrett gives readers the big picture of Web user experience development, from strategy and requirements to information architecture and visual design. This accessible introduction helps …

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👋 Hello, I'm Juliette! I am currently an Associate Design Director at Moderna focused on Individualized Cancer Treatments and Manufacturing. Prior to this, I spent 8 years as a Design Manager at Microsoft where I brought version-0 emerging technology products to life (Mixed Reality, Computer Vision, Large Language Models). As …

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👋 I am Prateek. I am a Senior Engineer at Buffer and a published author of several books on mobile design & software development. In my tenure of over seven years, I have worked on several verticals, which include building native mobile apps for iOS and Android in Swift, Kotlin …

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