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Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

#21
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe XD is a free tool for prototyping, though not Open Source.

Is it useful without the rest of their creative suite? I only ask because Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop are most effective when used together and obviously designed for that kind of synergy.

Yes it is useful without the rest of the suite. I would also recommend Figma which is also free.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

#22
post #10

(For background, I'm a faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute) For best books, it depends on if you want to understand users or do implementation. But generally, I'd highly recommend Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things to improve how you look at the world, and Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think for simple and practical design tips. For tools, the best is paper prototypi…

Are any of those prototyping tools open source and free?

Figma is free, not open source however.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

#23

(For background, I'm a faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute) For best books, it depends on if you want to understand users or do implementation. But generally, I'd highly recommend Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things to improve how you look at the world, and Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think for simple and practical design tips. For tools, the best is paper prototypi…

I don’t teach UX design, but if I did, Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things would be the first assigned reading. I’ve even recommended it to friends who aren’t looking to transition into design, but just want a better understanding of the discipline for the occasional departmental web page, etc.

If you want to focus on visual language, iconography, and how graphics communicate, an unconventional, yet highly-regarded choice is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. What Norman does for interaction, McCloud does for visual communication (and does so, appropriately, in the form of a comic book).

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

#24
post #3

https://refactoringui.com/ Just came out yesterday, doesn't necessarily teach 'from scratch' UI, but a great aide.

I saw this advertised on product hunt. Apparently it's a good thing that you can read it in 1.5hrs. Maybe but not with a $79 price tag for a PDF.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

#25
Many of the key designers moving interaction design forward are not publishing books, rather their corporate style guides are a better representation of their philosophy and method. Design has always been short on useful publications because it is a rapidly developing field that publishers often fear it has no shelf life.

If you want to learn interaction design it's best done with a bit of dedicated cooperation and experimentation. Use one of the big tech companies style guides to mock up a prototype and test it on your friends. Use blank HTML with images you can make easily in sketch.

Then iterate. That is most of interaction design. Most everything else people teach is either too localized or just not proven at scale.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

#28

(For background, I'm a faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute) For best books, it depends on if you want to understand users or do implementation. But generally, I'd highly recommend Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things to improve how you look at the world, and Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think for simple and practical design tips. For tools, the best is paper prototypi…

Don Norman's book The Design of Everyday Things has indeed altered how I look at the world from a design perspective. It teaches you design awareness, and you'll find yourself noticing and understanding design elements all around you, that you didn't before. Even though it might seem a little old, the information presented in there is timeless, so I highly recommend it as well. It is in fact the first book I would suggest to anyone wanting to learn how to think like a designer.

I recently got his other book, Emotional Design, I just haven't gotten to it yet.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?

#30

(For background, I'm a faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute) For best books, it depends on if you want to understand users or do implementation. But generally, I'd highly recommend Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things to improve how you look at the world, and Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think for simple and practical design tips. For tools, the best is paper prototypi…

Don Norman's book The Design of Everyday Things has indeed altered how I look at the world from a design perspective. It teaches you design awareness, and you'll find yourself noticing and understanding design elements all around you, that you didn't before. Even though it might seem a little old, the information presented in there is timeless, so I highly recommend it as well. It is in fact the first book I would su…

That book made me start getting annoyed at bad design like Norman Doors (doors that require a "push" or "pull" label instead of being intuitive).
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