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Andrew Haglund

Getting Started in UX

A colleague recently asked if I had book recommendations that cover the philosophy of design1 or books that gave me a leg-up when starting in UX design. This was a head-scratcher initially and I didn’t know where to begin. Right out of school I immersed myself in design — like someone moving to another country to learn a foreign language. This involved a lot of reading, podcasts, doing freelance and pro-bono side projects, and visiting friends who worked in the Austin and San Francisco tech startup scenes.

I’ve let that slide in recent years2 but I figured I could share the books, podcasts, and videos that helped me along the way.

Podcasts

While the majority of these shows are now retired I consider them to be evergreen.

Books

Videos


  1. As an example of “design philosophy” they recommended The Shape of Design by Frank Chimera. ↩︎

  2. I have a backlog of design organization books by O’Reilly (graciously purchased by my employer): Articulating Design Decisions, Discussing Design, Org Design for Design Orgs, Design Leadership, and UX Strategy. ↩︎

  3. At the time of this book being released (2018) I looked up to the culture DHH helped establish at 37signals but since then he’s turned out to be a turd. ↩︎