My Book Shelf
I’ve built quite the collection of design books over the years and I wanted to mention some of my favorites here and why they are so important to me. My first team was fairly new and we were all doing our best to truly understand product design and principles. We were a young, passionate, team that had a lot of learning to do. Reading and sharing resources among one another became vital in evangelizing user experience and design across a very traditional company. I will continue to add to this list as new reads stand out to me.
The User Experience Team of One - Leah Buley
First off, I would like to note that I am a huge fan of Rosenfeld Media. I greatly appreciate every format that books are delivered in and the quality of printing and writing. This book in particular got me through some difficult times while I worked as a team of one for a company that was very new to understanding design and how to work with UX practitioners. Buley provides readers with practical solutions to common hurdles that designers may face and encourages collaboration among various disciplines. This book is one I always recommend to aspiring designers or those challenged with evangelizing or starting new teams.
A Project Guide to UX Design - Russ Unger & Carolyn Chandler
This is another book I often recommend to new designers or those that may be struggling to get projects moving with new teams. Unger and Chandler define practical exercises with instruction that help designers discover, define, and solve problems in a collaborative space. This book became most valuable to me as I worked for a startup as the company’s first UX practitioner. The team moved quickly, often had very ambiguous needs and requirements, and had no mentor to assist me with managing and setting design expectations or turnaround.
Deep Work - Cal Newport
This is not necessarily a design book, but one I have found extremely valuable for everyday focus. Nearly four years at a startup can be stressful and work piles on quickly with very short deadlines which can easily create focus issues. A few months in, I realized my quality of work seemed to be suffering and I couldn’t pin point why. I was doing far more work in a shorter time period than I ever had before, but I wasn’t happy with the majority of it. I was recommended this book by a colleague and it all became very clear, my focus was too distributed across too many projects. This book helps build an understanding of what it takes to produce quality work and can equip readers with the information they need to push back on certain projects depending on priority and needs in order to provide the best quality work possible. I would highly recommend this book to anyone in a creative, analytical, or business position.
Biased- Jennifer Eberhardt, PhD
Another one that isn’t necessarily design focused, but vital for anyone that may not have a full understanding of bias (race, sex, gender, socioeconomic status, etc…) and how it may impact them day to day. I found this book to be extremely eye opening in realizing some of my own biases and understand others that some may have against me. Eberhardt also addresses bias in technology with apps like Airbnb and Nextdoor, bias in hiring, and promoting. Change can only happen once we are aware of the problem that exists. I can’t recommend this read enough.