All Book Reviews articles
Inclusive Design (Book Review)
Inclusive Design for a Digital World includes practical advice and strategies for designing inclusive and accessible products that take into consideration best practices used around the world. These strategies also ensure that people who have auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, visual disabilities, or situational challenges with access are fully able to use products we design. [Read More]
How to Persuade without Manipulation (Book Review)
Ethical design is becoming an increasingly important topic. But how can you incorporate ethical practices in your existing company? This handbook offers a wealth of advice on how to begin the process and modify workflow to produce products that benefit the user and the business alike. As a balanced mix of theory and practical guidelines, this book will guide you to delight your customers while increasing revenues, without resorting to shady tricks and manipulation. This review includes an example of simple framework for design decisions. [Read More]
Virtual Techniques to Gather User Data for Optimal UX (Book Review)
Remote Usability Testing includes virtual techniques and digital UX methods used to gather user data in real time to make design decisions. This book provides detailed steps and considerations to gather user data, analyze that data, and translate those findings into design decisions. [Read More]
Bridging Differences Across Cultures (Book Review)
A review of Global Social Media Design by Huatong Sun. This book provides a framework for cross-cultural social media design. [Read More]
How to Practice Cross-Cultural UX Design (Book Review)
A review of Universal UX Design by Alberto Ferreira. The book focuses on localization strategies for distinct groups. [Read More]
A design system’s practical guide (Book Review)
A review of "Building Design Systems" by Sarrah Vesselov and Taurie Davis, a reference guide on how to create, build, and maintain a design system in the context of an organization. "Building Design Systems" walks the reader through all things design systems. It starts by laying out their history and rise from both a design and development point of view. It then covers the six areas of a design system: layout, styles, components, regions, content, and usability. It’s also a handy guide to evaluate whether it’s the right time to implement, how to engage and onboard stakeholders, and how to implement a design system. [Read More]
Truth telling for businesses about valuing Customer Experience (Book Review)
A review of Delta CX. An introduction to the Delta Customer Experience model that uses methods and techniques to help companies be truly customer-focused. Delta CX explains how companies can invest in the right resources to build and design the right product services and experiences that customers actually want and will use. The book provides a lens through which it examines and evaluates the trends in the UX industry and provides tips on how companies can focus on providing quality with the right strategy, people and processes. [Read More]
Incorporating the Jobs to Be Done Framework (Book Review)
Jim Kalbach’s Jobs to be Done Playbook is a detailed guide for incorporating jobs to be done (JTBD) into any product, service, or user experience design process. “At its core, the concept of JTBD is straightforward: focus on people’s objectives independent of the means used to accomplish them,” says Kalbach in his introduction (xii). Aimed […] [Read More]
How Words Can Influence the User Experience (Book Review)
A review of Writing is Designing. This book describes how content influences user experience and provides best practices around writing content. [Read More]
Designing Information Systems (Book Review)
A review of Living in Information by Jorge Arango. This book examines how to design information environments that benefit society. [Read More]
The Art of Designing Conversational Interfaces (Book Review)
A review of Conversational Design by Erika Hall highlighting how Hall weaves communication principles into a reference guide on how to create effective conversational interfaces. [Read More]
The Cost of Bad Design (Book Review)
Tragic Design, by Jonathan Shariat and Cynthia Savard Saucier, reveals how design choices can negatively impact users and provides techniques to avoid harmful design decisions. [Read More]
How to Build A Better Future (Book Review)
A review of Future Ethics by Cennydd Bowles, which offers advice on how to use ethical theory to help navigate through the modern technological landscape. [Read More]
Becoming Emotionally Intelligent About Design (Book Review)
A review of Emotionally Intelligent Design by Pamela Pavliscak. This book provides guidance on how to incorporate an emotional layer into Design Thinking. [Read More]
An Insider’s Guide to UX Careers (Book Review)
A review of The UX Handbook by Cory Lebson. A career guideline for UX professionals. [Read More]
Problem to Prototype in Five Days (Book Review)
Whether you work in a small startup or a large corporation, teams can work on a solution for months to years only to produce products or services that fail to meet customers’ needs. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days provides a blueprint for how to solve for […] [Read More]
How to Conduct Field Research Anywhere (Book Review)
I have never before taken a “work” book to bed, and then read it compulsively all night. I actually haven’t done this since I was a kid (and then a flashlight was part of the equation). But, then again, I had never encountered a book as compelling, interesting, insightful, complete, readable, and downright beautiful as […] [Read More]
The Ultimate Introduction to Scrum (Book Review)
For many years, “scrum” and “agile” were the biggest buzzwords of the startup scene, growing to prominence as some of the biggest teams in the world adapted the processes for daily work. What was initially a solution for IT teams was quickly incorporated by designers, who sought an effective way to coordinate their work with […] [Read More]
Leading the Rebels: A UXer’s Guide to Shifting Your Organization to Customer-Centricity (Book Review)
A review of Transform by Gerry McGovern. A resource for UX professionals who want to make their organizations more customer-centric. [Read More]
Bringing Stats Into the Office (Book Review)
A review of Improving the User Experience Through Practical Data Analytics by Mike Fritz and Paul D. Berger, which offers data analysis lessons in bite-size chunks. [Read More]
A Life of Design and Innovation (Book Review)
A review of The Man Who Designed the Future: Norman Bel Geddes and the Invention of the Twentieth-Century America by B. Alexandra Szerlip [Read More]
Want to Understand the Future of HCI? Take a Trip Down Memory Lane (Book Review)
A review of From Tool to Partner: The Evolution of Human-Computer Interaction by Jonathan Grudin. [Read More]
UX Researchers: Be Careful Out There! (Book Review)
A review of Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories by Steve Portigal. [Read More]
What should UXers know about Digital and Marketing Asset Management? (Book Review)
“Digital and Marketing Asset Management” includes an overview of relevant technology and how it fits into digital marketing organizations. The book also includes tips for making a business case for DAM and how to evaluate related vendors. Learning about DAM will be useful to UX professionals who find themselves working alongside digital marketers or in digital marketing organizations. [Read More]
Is That Product Idea Really Good? (Book Review)
A review of Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research by Tomer Sharon. Guidance for why, when and how to conduct user research for product design. [Read More]
Five-Second Rules Help Build a Better Test (Book Review)
A review of The UX Five-Second Rules: Guidelines for User Experience Design’s Simplest Testing Technique by Paul Doncaster. An online, unmoderated method based on human perception. [Read More]
Cultivating Collaboration with Structured Negotiation (Book Review)
A review of Structured Negotiation by Lainey Feingold. An approach to resolving disputes based on collaboration rather than conflict. [Read More]
Turning User Research on Its Head (Book Review)
A review of “Presumptive Design: Design Provocations for Innovation” by Leo Frishberg and Charles Lambdin. [Read More]
Avoiding Narcissus: Finding inspiration in Unusual Places (Book Review)
A review of There’s Not an App for That by Robinson, Marsden & Jones. Think deeply about the way you design and how you might do it differently [Read More]
Story First for Engaging Experiences (Book Review)
A review of “The User’s Journey: Storymapping Products that People Love” by Donna Lichaw, which provides an accessible framework to help designers create engaging experiences. [Read More]
Eye Tracking in User Experience Design (Book Review)
A review of Eye Tracking in User Experience Design by Bergstrom and Schall. Experts discuss how they’ve leveraged eye tracking to improve user experiences in various domains. [Read More]
Surviving Tricky and Sticky Research Situations (Book Review)
A review of The Moderator’s Survival Guide by Donna Tedesco and Fiona Tranquada. Improve your research moderating skills. [Read More]
The Case for Being a UX Unicorn: Learning to Work More Effectively with Web Developers (Book Review)
A review of Bridging UX & Web Development by Jack Moffett. A good base for getting started with learning to code. [Read More]
From Local Context to Global Design (Book Review)
A review of Cross-Cultural Technology Design, Huatong Sun. This book examines the challenge of understanding cultural expectations and local context. [Read More]
Breakthrough Products Need Breakthrough Collaboration (Book Review)
A review of The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaboration by Ben Shneiderman. A fresh look at how teams and innovation work together. [Read More]
Finding Meaning with Ethnography (Book Review)
A review of Practical Ethnography: A Guide to Doing Ethnography in the Private Sector by Sam Ladner. A detailed view of what makes research ‘ethnographic.’ [Read More]
A Review of Contextual Inquiry for Medical Device Design (Book Review)
A review of Contextual Inquiry for Medical Device Design by Mary Beth Privitera. Learn best practices and techniques for applying contextual inquiry to medical device design. [Read More]
The Joys of Labor and the Danger of Automation (Book Review)
A review of The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr. An examination of the implications of automation for society and our work as designers. [Read More]
Design for Innovation (Book Review)
A review of 101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization by Vijay Kumar. A guidebook about innovation and design thinking techniques. [Read More]
UX Goes Global (Book Review)
A review of Global UX: Research and Design in a Connected World by Whitney Quesenbery and Daniel Szuc, and The Handbook of Global User Research by Robert Schumacher. [Read More]
A Curated Selection of Practical Tips and Advice (Book Review)
A review of The Mobile Frontier by Rachel Hinman. A guide for people starting out in designing mobile experiences. [Read More]
Pay Attention (Book Review)
A review of Ambient Commons by Malcolm McCullough. It’s all about paying attention – or not. [Read More]
Understanding UI Design Guidelines (Book Review)
A review of Designing with the Mind in Mind by Jeff Johnson. A psychological look at common design problems. [Read More]
Privacy Meets Technology: Two Views of “The Circle” (Book Review)
Two responses to The Circle by David Eggers. Lessons on privacy, information, and technology [Read More]
Learner Centered Design (Book Review)
A review of Interface Design for Learning by Dorian Peters. Creating designs that transform the user. [Read More]
Creativity in Design and UX (Book Review)
A review of Creative Confidence：Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom Kelley and David Kelley. Creativity and design in the user experience. [Read More]
Making the Web Accessible to All (Book Review)
A review of A Web for Everyone, by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery. A vision of a future in which we all can use the Web. [Read More]
Seeing is Believing (Book Review)
A review of Eye tracking the User Experience – A Practical Guide to Research by Aga Bojko. A must-read book with tips for running eye tracking studies. [Read More]
Redesigning Healthcare (Book Review)
A review of Design for Care by Peter H. Jones. Applying design thinking to healthcare systems. [Read More]
Underground Diagrams (Book Review)
A review of Underground Maps Unravelled and Vignelli Transit Maps. An analysis of the design issues that challenge today’s professionals. [Read More]
