[modi123_1]

Does anyone have great suggestions on 'best practices', 'design patterns', and 'general theory' books for UI design and human/computer interaction?

I am off to snag a copy of Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design, but I am not sure where else to go from there. The reviews for books on amazon are fairly mixed.


Edit: Answering my own question.. I think the 'Smashing Book' (1 and 2) look solid. I have always loved that site.
https://shop.smashin...-book-intl.html

This post has been edited by modi123_1: 03 February 2011 - 09:12 AM

[modi123_1]

Mkay.. so I actually have a title of what I was looking into: UXD or UX. 'user experience' design. Any help or bones tossed for said subject would be great.

[modi123_1]

Fun note - it seems the UX folk are really really trying hard to not be lumped in with UI people but are the ones "who just don't know code".

Edit: well the ones trying to keep in the software world... not the ones making fuzzy lamps or what not.

This post has been edited by modi123_1: 08 February 2011 - 01:36 PM

[capty99]

One of our main interview questions is what kind of UI book do you read or where do you keep up to date on stuff ... if the person hasn't read or heard of Don't Make Me Think they're pretty much off the list.

It's older -- the 2nd edition came out in 2005 -- but the ideas are classic. It's sort of the Keep It Simple Stupid philosophy but it's probably the number one recognized design books out there.



I've heard of this one : Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability (Interactive Technologies) --- but that it goes super deep into forms, there are probably alot easier reads that will be more beneficial unless you find a real deep discovery interesting.

the design of everyday things, may not be ui-specific, but a good design book

.....

as per the other discussion , i don't really understand the ux thing. you see it alot on resumes, and it's mostly a buzzword (or so far i've seen no one who has a real specific talent set aimed at that) ... went to a UX meeting in Dallas and it was all content strategists ... who do nothing but wireframe and stuff, very little design involved in their particular job description. I think content strategy is an integral part of my job as a ui designer, so i don't really understand that separation, but maybe that is because i work in a smaller shop where i'm making more decisions as opposed to a large corporation.

[stayscrisp]

This seems like an interesting read:
Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software

[modi123_1]

Good suggestions guys. I've seen "don't make me think" thrown around quite a bit... I'll dump that on my list.

Regarding the UX/UI thing - yeah, I am not getting it either, but if it's a confirmed buzzword/"make my own job up" sort of thing it puts it into perspective. Everything I read seems to say that UI guys subsume anything in UX (with the exception of being more generally touchy-feelie with the customers more) that it makes no sense to separate them.