I was very disappointed when I learned that this wasn't about designing books that think.
Design Thinking Books (2024)
31–40 of 164 posts
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't really a tasteful collection. It is just a bunch of popular books, all of which that I have read being about minimalism. If that's what you want you can just use Apple as a case study because that's what you end up getting if you want "modern" and minimal. Even just drop the CSS file from source into an LLM and go through how it is implemented.
Any suggestions are welcome. I would be happy to increase the quality of the library.
Most web design books are essentially going to tell you to put a navigation bar on top or on the side, with a big call to action button in the centre while laying everything out on a grid (hence why most websites now looks the same). Logo design books now are always going to tell you take inspiration from the Twitter or Nike logo e.g. something that is simple but easily recognisable from afar (everything is now a swirl or a a single polygon). The colour theory stuff is half pseudo-science and mostly going to tell you to pick from a small colour palette with a consistent primary/secondary colour while keeping in mind that colours are perceived differently in different cultures (now you have everything in black/blue/red and white). The only one that I liked was Refactoring UI because it demonstrated how small changes can add up to make something that looks amateur look professional. But you can probably learn more just by investigating things you like yourself and implementing them.
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#33I know it is more niche to the online/websites POV, but “Don’t Make Me Think” is a book that needs to be somewhere in the lines of “The Design of Everyday Things.” Of course, I re-read the latter as reminders and catch-up readings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Make_Me_Think
I was surprised this wasn't on there, even with a caveat that it's for online sources like you note.
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#34I'm a dev and recently picked up "The Design of Everyday Things" as an attempt to become more design-oriented. Everyone raves about this being like the bible of design. So far I'm about 80 pages in and have found it extremely academic and not very practical, sometimes deriving conclusions that are so far from reality that they are a bit concerning, like how a strong password does not matter because once they inevitab…
I was gifted this book my a CIO when in college. She had a dozen copies in her office to hand out to various people.
It took me a few tries to get up the will to actually read it. It was years ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details. My main take away was to make controls logical for the thing being controlled. “Norman doors” are the big one, but I often think about it while I’m in my car trying to do something on a touch screen, when all I want is a knob, button, or switch.
In the modern era of web design I think it would point to these websites (like most of Apple’s product pages), that make users scroll through indulgent animations, just to get to the content. It may be cool the first time, but is very annoying for repeat visits, and it feels like it breaks my scrolling expectations. Not to mention all the horizontal scrolling thrown in there, which becomes a headache for those without the hardware to do it easily, and confusing to change scroll direction all the time.
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#35I'm a dev and recently picked up "The Design of Everyday Things" as an attempt to become more design-oriented. Everyone raves about this being like the bible of design. So far I'm about 80 pages in and have found it extremely academic and not very practical, sometimes deriving conclusions that are so far from reality that they are a bit concerning, like how a strong password does not matter because once they inevitab…
For Devs/Engineers and even many designers, things some of us tend to take for granted were amazing to them. So, my first recommendation is to read Refactoring UI end-to-end and keep a copy handy at your desk. https://www.refactoringui.com PS. Refactoring UI is from the guys who created TailwindCSS.
May be it's just me, but the very first example (contacts form) looks better (easier to read) on the left than text in empty space on the right (which is supposed to be the good design)...
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#36I'm a dev and recently picked up "The Design of Everyday Things" as an attempt to become more design-oriented. Everyone raves about this being like the bible of design. So far I'm about 80 pages in and have found it extremely academic and not very practical, sometimes deriving conclusions that are so far from reality that they are a bit concerning, like how a strong password does not matter because once they inevitab…
I was gifted this book my a CIO when in college. She had a dozen copies in her office to hand out to various people. It took me a few tries to get up the will to actually read it. It was years ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details. My main take away was to make controls logical for the thing being controlled. “Norman doors” are the big one, but I often think about it while I’m in my car trying to do something on…
My car has a staggeringly bad UI design choice - the cancel active navigation the control to do this only appears when you hold your finger close to the screen. Pretty much every time I want to do this I am flummoxed as to "Where did the button go" - before I eventually remember.
The navigation system is good - I prefer it to using my phone and CarPlay but that design is terrible.
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#37Design thinking is a human-centered, iterative approach to creative problem- solving, focusing on deeply understanding users' needs to develop innovative solutions through phases like Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Apparently. It's not immediately clear how it's different from your good old "regular" design.
Yes I agree, and the replies don't really make it any more clear.
The biggest differentiator of design thinking is really addressing the XY problem. In 95% of cases clients will come to you to design their solution. Ie they already think they have a solution to their problem and now they want it to look good.
Design thinking is basically more like root cause analysis, or the 5 why's.. and an emphasis on taking to end users (the people with the problem) without having a solution.
Once you understand the problem more fundamentally is only when you start cooking up with a solution.
And the result of that process might not even be a traditional design, but perhaps just a tweak to something, like moving your onboarding to later in the ca process..
In practice however.. 95% of designers who say they practice design thinking disregard this, and just want to design wherever the client asks for
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#38Noted couple of books. I've been curating (mostly design) books on a digital library: https://links.1984.design/books
Nice collection, "Weniger, aber besser" by Rams will suffice and is at home on any shelf.
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#39I'm a dev and recently picked up "The Design of Everyday Things" as an attempt to become more design-oriented. Everyone raves about this being like the bible of design. So far I'm about 80 pages in and have found it extremely academic and not very practical, sometimes deriving conclusions that are so far from reality that they are a bit concerning, like how a strong password does not matter because once they inevitab…
my take on this book is that 1) it contains a lot of foundational knowledge/wisdom about design as interpreted broadly that is very useful across contexts, and 2) it is itself, ironically, an example of poor design. Not in the visual sense, but in that it's structure and writing do a pretty bad job actually conveying that knowledge to the reader and being navigable.
I tried reading it and hated it, then I came back knowing bits and pieces of its contents from elsewhere and was like "yup, this is the only place I've seen all of this together".
Re: Design Thinking Books (2024)
#40"Must read" ? Must? GTFO with this hyperbolic language
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