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.
- Design Matters by Debbie Millman is about creative people from a wide array of disciplines.
- High Resolution by Bobby Ghoshal and Jared Erondu was a limited-run show where they interviewed design leaders.
- Layout by Kevin Clark and Rafael Conde was a good (semi-topical) show that helped me feel connected to the broader design community.
- Presentable by Jeff Veen is a great set of interviews with design experts.
Books
- Build by Tony Fadell includes lessons from creating the iPod and Nest.
- Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull is about how Pixar makes and tests movies iteratively.
- The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is all about affordances.
- Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug is about usability testing.
- It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and Daniel Heinemeier Hansson3 is about bucking the work-obsessed Silicon Valley culture.
- The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley of IDEO is about the roles of innovative teams. It’s summarized in this post.
- 100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan M. Weinschenk, Ph.D. is about the intersection of psychology and design.
Videos
- AJ&Smart’s workshop videos do a great job at demystifying facilitation.
- Apple’s Design videos are top-notch.
As an example of “design philosophy” they recommended The Shape of Design by Frank Chimera. ↩︎
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. ↩︎
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. ↩︎
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