Top UX 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 UX Design books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of UX Design

Understanding the concepts of UX 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.

Designing Interfaces, 3rd Edition

Designing good application interfaces isn’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, you’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 proble…

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Writing Is Designing: Words and the User Experience

Without words, apps would be an unusable jumble of shapes and icons, while voice interfaces and chatbots wouldn't even exist. Words make software human–centered, and require just as much thought as the branding and code. This book will show you how to give your users clarity, test your words, and collaborate with your team. You'll see that writing is designing.

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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…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

UI is Communication: How to Design Intuitive, User Centered Interfaces by Focusing on Effective Communication

User interface design is a challenging, multi disciplinary activity that requires understanding a wide range of concepts and techniques that are often subjective and even conflicting. Imagine how much it would help if there were a single perspective that you could use to simplify these complex issues down to a small set of objective principles. In UI is Communication, Everett McKay explains ho…

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

Smart organizations recognize that Web design is more than just creating clean code and sharp graphics. A site that really works fulfills your strategic objectives while meeting the needs of your users. Even the best content and the most sophisticated technology won't help you balance those goals without a cohesive, consistent user experience to support it. But creating the user experience can…

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Universal Principles of Design

Universal Principles of Design is the first cross-disciplinary reference of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this book pairs clear explanations of the design concepts featured with visual examples of those concepts applied in practice.

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Additional UX Design Reading

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

The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide

The User Experience Team of One prescribes a range of approaches that have big impact and take less time and fewer resources than the standard lineup of UX deliverables. Whether you want to cross over into user experience or you're a seasoned practitioner trying to drag your organization forward, this book gives you tools and insight for doing more with less.

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Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology

Learn the psychological constrictions of attention, perception, memory, disposition, motivation, and social influence that determine whether customers will be receptive to your digital innovations. Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology fills a need for entrepreneurs, designers, and marketing professionals in the application of foundational psychology to user-experience design. T…

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Just Enough Research

Design research is a hard slog that takes years to learn and time away from the real work of design, right? Wrong. Good research is about asking more and better questions, and thinking critically about the answers. It’s something every member of your team can and should do, and which everyone can learn, quickly. And done well, it will save you time and money by reducing unknowns and creating a…

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The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition

Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. 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 a…

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Lean UX

Inspired by Lean and Agile development theories, Lean UX lets you focus on the actual experience being designed, rather than deliverables. This book shows you how to collaborate closely with other members of your Agile product team, and gather feedback early and often.

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The Design of Everyday Things

One of the world's great designers shares his vision of "the fundamental principles of great and meaningful design", that's "even more relevant today than it was when first published" (Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO). Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this ingenious…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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