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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?

#91

Post by colinjoy »

aasasd wrote: post #85

I'd like to advertise a method instead of a treatise: IMO the principle of proximity is the most important design tool. The practical application of the principle is that space outside an element should be unambiguously larger than inner parts of the element, for the element to look like an integrated entity. This simply describes how human visual perception works. This works on all scales, from typography to graphic…

For visual design, an understanding of the Gestalt principles (or „Gestalt Laws“ to stick with the German origin) is a must. The law of proximity is the first and most powerful, but the others are also useful to be aware of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology#Prägnanz

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

#92

Post by uxcolumbo »

sizzle wrote: post #82
jasonhong wrote: post #7

(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…

Any insight into the trend of UX designer --> Product designer? I see this transition in titles all over the place at big SF companies like Adobe, which is disheartening because now I'm expected to have a dribblesque visual/graphic design skill set (least interesting aspect of design imo) with less emphasis on design thinking, more on delivering assets, front-end code and letting UX researchers focus on generative (m…

Titles in our industry are such a mess. I really can't stand 'UI/UX Designer'. If I see that title then usually that's a signal for me that the hiring manager doesn't really know what they need.

To me product designer means someone who's a hybrid, an alrounder - basically a UX designer with following traits:

- good research and analytical skills

- decent or great visual design skills

- ability to create sophisticated prototypes (not just creating hot-mapped images)

- someone who has good technical knowledge, so they don't design something that's going to be really difficult and expensive to build

- someone who considers product and business matters, i.e. ability to strike the balance between user and business needs.

What are you hoping a PhD will give you?

I'm not sure where you are, but if you want to use your skills for something good, why not try to help your government - improving their online services etc.

See for example what the UK did to their government sites - a great investment that made it easier for millions of people to understand and use their online services.

One example: https://beta.nhs.uk/service-manual/design-principles/

edit: formatting issues

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

#93

Post by fermienrico »

Finnucane wrote: post #34
jasonhong wrote: post #7

(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…

Oy, guy advising on UI/UX ends discussion by pointing to 99-slide-long powerpoint deck that appears to be lots of bullet lists and clip art. Well, [expletive deleted].

I think the slides are providing conceptual framework about UX/UI and not aesthetic. I do think that it is pretty useless without the author speaking to it.

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

#94

Post by colinjoy »

sizzle wrote: post #82
jasonhong wrote: post #7

(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…

Any insight into the trend of UX designer --> Product designer? I see this transition in titles all over the place at big SF companies like Adobe, which is disheartening because now I'm expected to have a dribblesque visual/graphic design skill set (least interesting aspect of design imo) with less emphasis on design thinking, more on delivering assets, front-end code and letting UX researchers focus on generative (m…

Have you tried seeking a position in the automotive field or with a design agency thats more focussed on the physical space? What makes you think you need a PhD to qualify?

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

#95

Post by nateweiss »

I like "Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design" by Jenifer Tidwell. Less of an instruction book, more of a catalogue of how you might (or might not) present some given type of information. Good for browsing through when you're feeling you haven't hit the right organizational approach/metaphor for the task at hand.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449379702

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

#96

Post by l9k »

aasasd wrote: post #85

I'd like to advertise a method instead of a treatise: IMO the principle of proximity is the most important design tool. The practical application of the principle is that space outside an element should be unambiguously larger than inner parts of the element, for the element to look like an integrated entity. This simply describes how human visual perception works. This works on all scales, from typography to graphic…

Also related: Fitts's Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law

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

#97

Post by johnl1479 »

sizzle wrote: post #87
johnl1479 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For schools, some to check out would be Georgia Tech, University of Washington's Master's of HCI, Indiana University, University of Michigan iSchool, and (of course) Carnegie Mellon's Master's of HCI. As a graduate of University of Washington's Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) master's program, I would recommend that if you are interested in understanding 'what' makes a good UI or UX instead of 'how' to…

Too bad a lot of jobs now will hire the 10 week General Assembly UX grad with flashy dribblesque portfolio, that can produce visual and graphic design assets that heavily copy UX patterns from other apps or just follow material design/ apple human interface guidelines verbatim and let the UX researchers figure out usability and design recommendations based off user testing. How has HCI given you an advantage over a U…

I would consider copying patterns and Material or Apple HIGs to be the 'how' [to build a good UI or UX] I mentioned previously: those are artifacts produced by others who I would consider have good understanding and experience in 'what' makes a good UI or UX.

I think my advantage is being more aligned with the 'what'. A UX bootcamper could come in and whip something up quickly that looks pretty and win over the hearts and minds of the project sponsors, but (I assume) said bootcamp isn't teaching different theories of cognition or offering practical experience in designing studies in which to test some new interaction.

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

#98

Post by ru999gol »

idoubtit wrote: post #53
gypsyBelly wrote: post #27

Take a look at https://refactoringui.com/ Very tactical guidelines to follow geared towards devs.

I've just visited this site, and I was lost after 5 seconds. To my eyes, the design of the front page is awful. Firstly, I read the title and the sub-header sentence. I understood that the site had generic guide on concepts designing web. Okay, I'm interested. Then I scrolled down to the 3 categories. The first one collects some tips. None of them is related to the grand project announced in the title, they seem much…

That seems really unfair, I think they do have some really valuable advice especially for programmers.

https://twitter.com/i/moments/994601867987619840

Their book also just came out and looks great, albeit grossly overpriced.

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

#99

Post by kiechu »

keithnz wrote: post #51

Badass: Making Users Awesomeby Kathy Sierra https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24737268-badass is a good book, though its primary focus is more to do with how to work out what kind of UI to build not the specific details of the UI itself ( which is quite fickle ).

The format of this book is just terrible. I couldn't get past first few pages.

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

#100

Post by Isamu »

sizzle wrote: post #82
jasonhong wrote: post #7

(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…

Any insight into the trend of UX designer --> Product designer? I see this transition in titles all over the place at big SF companies like Adobe, which is disheartening because now I'm expected to have a dribblesque visual/graphic design skill set (least interesting aspect of design imo) with less emphasis on design thinking, more on delivering assets, front-end code and letting UX researchers focus on generative (m…

>I'm interested in working on/solving big, "wicked" problems through UX design like self driving cars or improving healthcare.

We need more people with these ambitions. Maybe you should be looking to create a forward-looking design firm focusing on the hard problems, rather than looking for a “job”.

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