The 10 Best Books on User Experience

a list by Whitney Hess, user experience designer, writer, and consultant

If you create digital products, you have a responsibility to make them easy to use. Honestly, it’s mostly common sense; it’s just not common practice. These books will teach you how to design products that are useful, usable and desirable. While there are certainly more than 10 amazing books on the topic, these are the absolute essentials. (Note that the books are in no particular order.)

	Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning by Dan Brown Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. Kindle edition available 368 page paperback \|$29.69 \|36 reviews


	Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. Kindle edition available 448 page paperback \|$32.97 \|16 reviews


	Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. 216 page paperback \|$26.40 \|468 reviews


	About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. Kindle edition available 648 page paperback \|$29.70 \|11 reviews


	Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World: Adaptive Path on Design by Peter Merholz, Todd Wilkens, Brandon Schauer, David Verba Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. Kindle edition available 186 page hardcover \|$16.49 \|18 reviews


	The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. Kindle edition available 272 page paperback \|$11.53 \|156 reviews


	Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices by Dan Saffer Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. Kindle edition available 248 page paperback \|$29.70 \|14 reviews


	Designing for the Social Web by Joshua Porter Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. 192 page paperback \|$26.40 \|18 reviews


	Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior by Indi Young Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. 299 pages, used, starting at $36.00 \|9 reviews


	The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web by Jesse James Garrett Read this book? Click here and tell us what you thought. 208 page paperback \|$23.09 \|42 reviews

And if you want to go beyond the 10 best books, take a look at my list of the next 7 books every digital designer should have.

What do you think of this list? Leave a comment below!

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About Whitney Hess

Whitney Hess is an independent user experience design consultant based in New York City. She writes about technology and customer experience on her blog, Pleasure and Pain.