Essential Reading for the User Experience Designer

For some time I had been slowly acquiring books, reviewing books, and recommending books to collegues who were interested in “getting into” interaction design, user experience design, information architecture or usability. This eventually led to me cataloging my list of what I consider the best books in the field. With help from my friend Dave Malouf (co-founder of the IxDA and Professor of Interaction Design at SCAD), we edited this list of my canon, and now I want to share this list with you. If you have a question about a particular book, feel free to email me.

Next steps, besides slowly acquiring and reviewing more books, is to begin further classification of books. Until that can happen, this is my UX library. If I don’t own it or haven’t read it, it’s definitely not on this list. At the same time, there are books that I own that aren’t included because I thought they sucked for one reason or another. The fourth option is that I have it, have read it, liked it, but simply forgot to include it. So if you ask “Why haven’t you included X, Y, or Z – it’s one of those reasons.”

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The UX Canon: Essential Reading For The User Experience Designer

For some time I had been slowly acquiring books, reviewing books, and recommending books to collegues who were interested in “getting into” interaction design, user experience design, information architecture or usability. This eventually led to me cataloging my list of what I consider the best books in the field. With help from my friend Dave Malouf (co-founder of the IxDA and Professor of Interaction Design at SCAD), we edited this list of my canon, and now I want to share this list with you. If you have a question about a particular book, feel free to email me.

Next steps, besides slowly acquiring and reviewing more books, is to begin further classification of books. Until that can happen, this is my UX library. If I don’t own it or haven’t read it, it’s definitely not on this list. At the same time, there are books that I own that aren’t included because I thought they sucked for one reason or another. The fourth option is that I have it, have read it, liked it, but simply forgot to include it. So if you ask “Why haven’t you included X, Y, or Z – it’s one of those reasons.”

The Big UX Picture

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper

Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman

Leonardo’s Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies by Ben Shneiderman

Core: Required Readings in UX

About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper , Robert Reimann , David Cronin

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites by Louis Rosenfeld , Peter Morville

Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge

Designing the User Interface by Ben Shneiderman

Introductions to UX

The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web by Jesse James Garrett

A Project Guide to UX: For user experience designers in the field or in the making by Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton

Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices by Dan Saffer

Thoughts on Interaction Design (Perfect Paperback) by Jon Kolko

Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology by Jonas Löwgren , Erik Stolterman

Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design by Robert Hoekman Jr.

Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web by Christina Wodtke

The Electronic Design Studio: Architectural Education in the Computer Era by Malcolm McCulloughWilliam J. Mitchell (Editor), Patrick Purcell (Editor) (Editor),

Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing by Malcolm McCullough


Practice, Methods and Tactics in UX

Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning by Dan Brown

The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web by Steve Mulder , Ziv Yaar

Design Research: Methods and Perspectives by Brenda Laurel and Peter Lunenfeld

Rapid Contextual Design: A How-to Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design by Karen Holtzblatt , Jessamyn Burns Wendell , Shelley Wood

Contextual Design : A Customer-Centered Approach to Systems Designs by Hugh Beyer, Karen Holtzblatt

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) by Mike Kuniavsky

User and Task Analysis for Interface Design by JoAnn T. Hackos, Ph.D , Janice C. Redish

The Persona Lifecycle : Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) by John Pruitt , Tamara Adlin

Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction by Bonnie A. Nardi

Design Research: Methods and Perspectives by Brenda Laurel (Editor), Peter Lunenfeld (Preface)

Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior by Indy Young

Card Sorting: Design Usable Categories by Donna Spencer

Prototyping: A Practitioners Guide to Prototyping by Todd Zaki Warfel

Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces (Interactive Technologies)  by Carolyn Snyder

Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become by Peter Morville

Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design by Jenifer Tidwell

Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Patterns and Practices for Improving the User Experience by Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone

Search Patterns: Design for Discovery by Peter Morville

Modular Web Design: Creating Reusable Components for User Experience Design and Documentation by Nathan Curtis

Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski

Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook by Dan Cederholm

Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman

User-Centered Website Development: A Human-Computer Interaction Approach by Daniel D. McCracken , Rosalee J. Wolfe , Jared M. Spool

Usability

Don’t Make Me Think: A common sense approach to web usability by Steve Krug

Human Factors in Information Systems: The Relationship Between User Interface Designand Human Performance (Human Computer Interaction)  by Jane M. Carey (Editor)

Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach by Jonathan Lazar

Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines by Sanjay J. Koyani , Robert W. Bailey , Janice R. Nall

Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work (Interactive Technologies) by Tom Brinck , Darren Gergle , Scott D. Wood

Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests by Jeffrey Rubin

A Practical Guide to Usability Testing by Joseph S. Dumas , Janice C. Redish

Prioritizing Web Usability (VOICES)  by Jakob Nielsen , Hoa Loranger

Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity by Jakob Nielsen

Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability (Paperback – Jun 28, 2002) by Luke Wroblewski

Web Site Usability (Interactive Technologies)
by Jared Spool , Tara Scanlon , Carolyn Snyder , Terri DeAngelo

Visual Thinking & Info Viz

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition by Edward R. Tufte

Beautiful Evidence by Edward R. Tufte

Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative by Edward R. Tufte

Information Design by RobertJacobson (Editor)

Information Graphics: Innovative Solutions in Contemporary Design by Peter Wildbur , Michael Burke

Visual Function: An Introduction to Information Design by Paul Mijksenaar

// credit goes to The UX Canon: Essential Reading For The User Experience Designer

10 Innovative Ways To Get Yourself Out of A Mindblock

For a long time, I guess I’m running such problem that’s mind block. I sort out the problem and today I’m reading another one cool posts and where cleraly disclosed for what reasons it can happen to anyone. If you’ve in such problem, this post might help you out.

Alex Monroe is the founder of GetYourBizSavvy.com, a source for entrepreneurs featuring interviews with leading entrepreneurs from around the world.

We all have great ideas, but finding them is the difficult part. When you can’t think of an article to write, a way to attract more readers, or the next chapter of your book, you’re suffering from a mind block. What do I do, is the question you might ask yourself. It is important to get you thinking, get your mind in motion. Here are ten steps to keep you innovating.

1. Newspapers/Magazines

Pick up a few newspapers and magazines and start flipping through pages. Search everything including advertisements and classifieds. Read the articles that are really interesting. The New York Post always offers an odd article and their cartoons are great. Cartoons can even help you relate to something and come up with an idea.

2. Blogs

There is pretty much a blog on everything. Search blogs similar to the content you offer. Read the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs. Maybe find a new blog in a completely different field. All these will help you create ideas.

3. Books

Read something. Learn about something you never knew about. Getting knowledge on a new subject will create a lot of opportunities.

4. Music

Insert the mixtape that you love and groove to. Music is motivational, inspirational and symbolic. If you don’t think of something while you’re listening and bopping your head, you might learn something within the lyrics.

5. Phone a friend

Call someone you can talk to and also listen to. Ask them about problems they have been facing or if they have anything exciting to talk about. They might say one thing and it will click for you.

6. Ask the audience

This is starting to sound like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire! In all serious though, ask your audience. Bloggers, write a post asking the readers what they want to see from you. Ask for feedback. Let them know what you want to do and ask for ideas. Remember that the readers are the one’s keeping you going, so they will love that.

7. Go for a walk

Fresh air is a beautiful thing. Take deep breaths of it. Get your blood flowing and the ideas will come too.

8. Meditate

Just relax and let go. Go to another place. Come back once that innovation wakes you up.

9. Eat

Mmm…cheeseburger and french fries. According to The Thinking Business, proteins and carbohydrates are essential in business. They explain that carbohydrates leave you feeling “calm and relaxed” and proteins “improve mental performance”. After a good meal, your brain will be back on track.

10. Get your mind off it completely

If nothing seems to be working for you, it might be because you give yourself no down time. You give your work time, but you don’t give yourself time. YOU time is extremely important because it gets your mind off your work. You have been working so hard being innovative that you exhausted your resources. Go to the movies, play a sport, watch some movies, and then when you return to your work the next day you will feel refreshed and ready to exhaust yourself again.

You know what to do now. You have ten ways to get innovative. Now do it!

Content Credit goes to Jhon, Alex Monroe & 10 Innovative Ways To Get Yourself Out of a Mindblock.

Import Twitter Contacts To Google Buzz


Web based messaging service Google Buzz and now they are the main competitor of Twitter. If you want, you can move your all contact from Twitter to Google Buzz. Three steps will take and move yourself and Tw2Buzz going to help you and easily you can connect with your twitter friends on Google Buzz.

Three Steps To Go:
1. Login via twitter
2. The Tw2Buzz system will import your all contacts from twitter and scan the Google Buzz to find their Google contacts.
3. For each users will get option to follow or not to follow on Goole Buzz.

The service still, in private beta and soon it will be enable for everyone.

How Flickr Works

Flickr showing a photo and stats of the day: 6,894 uploads in the last minute, 160,129 things tagged with morning, 2.2 million things geo-tagged this month. Photo Courtesy: Flickr.com

Flickr, one of the world’s largest photo sharing, video hosting and online community where millions of users uploading and sharing photos, videos world wide. The Flickr lunched in February 2004 and co-founder Stewart Butterfield & co-founder Caterina Fake. More then four billion images hosted within October 2009 — explains official flickr blog.

In March 2005, Yahoo Inc, acquired Flickr and in December 2006, increased per month upload limit from 20 MB to 100 MB and as allowing Pro Account holders to uploading unlimited photos and shares. In April 2008, Flickr allowing paid users to upload videos and limited to 90 seconds in length and 150 MB in size. In March 2009, Flickr also introducing High Definition (HD) videos and allowing free users to upload normal resolutions.

Flickr not only allowing Paid users to upload photos, videos but also allowing free users to upload photos, videos. Free user can upload photos of 100 MB per month and allowed to upload 2 videos per month. Where Paid user can upload unlimited photos, videos and of-course allowed to upload HD videos.

If any account is inactive for 90 days, the account will be deleted from Flickr. On the other hand, Pro users getting unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage.