Reading List: User Experience & Information Architecture

With this modest tome, Don Norman started a revolution toward user-centered design. Norman's discussion of the interface design of physical objects (door handles, stove dials, etc.) is grounded in cognitive psychology, but the clear presentation and engaging tone make the topic accessible to all.

Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Usability expert Steve Krug distills his years of experience into clear, practical, amusing advice for the people in the trenches (designers, programmers, writers, editors), the people who tell them what to do (project managers and marketing people), and even the people who sign the checks.

The Art and Science of Web Design by Jeffrey Veen
Jeff Veen's latest book will help you understand the Web from the inside. It's not a reference book or a style guide -- it's your mentor, whispering in your ear answers to those ubiquitous questions, and reminding us that there are new rules and new ways to break them.

The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams
With great humility, this book proves again that simple truths are the most brilliant. Though written ostensibly for print design (and for non-designers), the principles laid out here transcend medium. Every designer must read this book.

Contextual Design by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holzblatt
This groundbreaking text creates a new methodology within systems design, wherein ethnographic understanding of your customers is modeled into solid forms from which you can design.

About Face by Alan Cooper
Because of his finger-wagging style, Alan Cooper has rightly been called the "Miss Manners" of software. In this thorough textbook on UI design, Cooper details how to build polite applications that treat users with respect. An absolute must-read for developers.

Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte

Visual Explanations by Edward Tufte
First - Tufte is a god among ants. In these three books, the foremost expert on information design in our age explains good and bad design of nouns, numbers and verbs, respectively. Tufte is professor emeritus at Yale, and derives his timeless truths from the entire span of human history, from the first English translations of Euclid to the space shuttle Challenger.

Information Design by Robert Jackson
This is a multi-author collection of essays on the various aspects of information design. It includes the theoretical foundations, information design in practice, and a look at related technologies.

Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices by Dan Saffer
Dan Saffer's overview of the emerging field of interaction design starts with the fundamental question "What is an interaction?" and the prehistoric roots of interaction design and makes its way through the exciting present and future of the discipline. Covering such topics as the different approaches to interaction design, the characteristics of good interaction design, design research, design documentation, and service design, this primer "sets the stake in the ground for interaction design" according to AIGA executive director Richard Grefe.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
One of the seminal books on information architecture, and often simply called "The Polar Bear Book" (due to the image on the cover). It outlines the basic principles of IA – such as organization and navigation – as well as methodologies, documentation and deliverables, strategy and case studies.

Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success by Peter Van Dijck
A graphics-heavy look at the field of information architecture, with lots of real-life examples. Includes sections on website strategy, audience research, information architecture, designing functionality, and interface design.

The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett
Jesse James Garrett cuts through the complexity of user-centered design. His clear explanations and vivid illustrations focus on ideas, rather than tools or techniques. He gives readers the big picture of Web user experience development, from strategy and requirements to information architecture and visual design. This accessible introduction helps any Web development team, large or small, to create a successful user experience.

Thesaurus Construction and Use: A Practical Manual, Fourth Edition by Jean Aitchison, Alan Gilchrist, and David Bawden
A practical, concise guide to the construction of thesauri for use in information retrieval. The authors, who are leading experts in the field, include topics like planning and design; vocabulary control; specificity and compound terms; structure and relationships; auxiliary retrieval devices; multilingual thesauri; AAT Compound Term Rules; the US ANSI/NISO Z39.19 Thesaurus construction standard and many more.

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research by Mike Kuniavsky
Mike Kuniavsky, a founding partner of Adaptive Path, fills his book with real-world experience and practical information. He presents a complete toolbox of techniques to help designers and developers bridge the gap between what your users need and what they want from your product. Includes in-depth descriptions of 13 user-experience research techniques that can be used on projects for the Web, software, or mobile devices.

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
Author Geoffrey Moore makes the case that high-tech products require marketing strategies that differ from those in other industries. His chasm theory describes how high-tech products initially sell well, mainly to a technically literate customer base, but then hit a lull as marketing professionals try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
A clever dissection of the creative process. Using comics as a frame of reference, Scott McCloud discusses art and creativity at all levels.

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
This 1977 book is one of the best pieces of information design we've come across. The book's presentation -- the layout of each item of the language, the nodal navigation from item to item, the mix of text and image -- is as inspiring as the topic itself.

Invention by Design: How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing by Henry Petroski
Petroski uses the invention of familiar items like paper clips, aluminum cans, pencil points, and zippers to discuss the nature of invention, design, and development.

How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand's look at how buildings change and adapt over time got us to thinking about similar issues in Web design. While users don't "inhabit" Web sites, that doesn't mean Web sites shouldn't adapt over time to better accommodate user needs (and, clearly, the best ones do). Brand's discussion of the known issues of designing for change translates well to this new medium.

Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds by Mitch Resnick
Resnick explores the counterintuitive world of decentralized systems and self-organizing phenomena. Drawing on ideas from computer science, education, psychology, and systems theory, he examines why many people resist decentralized ideas, and describes an innovative computer language, StarLogo, that he designed to help students from grade school and up simulate self-organizing behavior in systems.

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Note: Will Evans is a software information architect for a risk modeling software company in Boston, and was previously the information architect responsible for designing the Gather User Experience. He prefers not publishing articles about IA, User Experience, or even Meta articles about Gather itself. He prefers to publish his musings, ideas, poetry and completely messed up pre-Simulationist and post-modern critiques of modern culture and aesthetics. He drinks way to much coffee.