There are countless Usability courses, tutorials, articles available online, but for some, having a book is still a necessity to learn. This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
- Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (3rd Edition) (Voices That Matter) (2014)
- Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, Second Edition (2008)
- Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics (Interactive Technologies) (2013)
- Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set…Test! (2010)
- Usability Assessment: How to Measure the Usability of Products, Services, and Systems (User’s Guides to Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods) (Volume 1) (2016)
- Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems (2009)
- Usability Matters: Practical UX for Developers and other Accidental Designers (2018)
- Usable Usability: Simple Steps for Making Stuff Better (2012)
- 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Usability) (2017)
- Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (2008)
- Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design (2010)
- UX Wireframe Sketchbook: Mobile Device UX/UI Wireframe Sketchbook for fast UI Prototype Design and Web App Usability Testing (2019)
- Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition (2005)
Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (3rd Edition) (Voices That Matter) (2014)
Since Don’t Make Me Think was first published in 2000, hundreds of thousands of Web designers and developers have relied on usability guru Steve Krug’s guide to help them understand the principles of intuitive navigation and information design. Witty, commonsensical, and eminently practical, it’s one of the best-loved and most recommended books on the subject.
Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, Second Edition (2008)
Whether it’s software, a cell phone, or a refrigerator, your customer wants – no, expects – your product to be easy to use. This fully revised handbook provides clear, step-by-step guidelines to help you test your product for usability. Completely updated with current industry best practices, it can give you that all-important marketplace advantage: products that perform the way users expect.
Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics (Interactive Technologies) (2013)
Measuring the User Experience was the first book that focused on how to quantify the user experience. Now in the second edition, the authors include new material on how recent technologies have made it easier and more effective to collect a broader range of data about the user experience.
Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set…Test! (2010)
Usability Testing Essentials provides readers with the tools and techniques needed to begin usability testing or to advance their knowledge in this area. The book begins by presenting the essentials of usability testing, which include focusing on the user and not the product; knowing when to conduct small or large studies; and thinking of usability as hill climbing.
Usability Assessment: How to Measure the Usability of Products, Services, and Systems (User’s Guides to Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods) (Volume 1) (2016)
Usability Assessment is a concise volume for anyone requiring knowledge and practice in assessing the usability of any type of product, tool, or system before it is launched. It provides a brief history and rationale for conducting usability assessments and examples of how usability assessment methods have been applied, takes readers step by step through the process, highlights challenges and special cases, and offers real-life examples.
Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems (2009)
It's been known for years that usability testing can dramatically improve products. But with a typical price tag of $5,000 to $10,000 for a usability consultant to conduct each round of tests, it rarely happens.
Usability Matters: Practical UX for Developers and other Accidental Designers (2018)
Usability Matters: Mobile-first UX for developers and other accidental designers gives you practical advice and guidance on how to create attractive, elegant, and useful user interfaces for native and web-based mobile apps. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. Just because a mobile app works doesn’t mean real people are going to like it.
Usable Usability: Simple Steps for Making Stuff Better (2012)
Frustrated by pop-ups? Forms that make you start over if you miss a field? Nonsensical error messages? You’re not alone! This book helps you simply get it right the first time (or fix what’s broken). Boasting a full-color interior packed with design and layout examples, this book teaches you how to understand a user’s needs, divulges techniques for exceeding a user’s expectations, and provides a host of hard won advice for improving the overall quality of a user’s experience.
3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Usability) (2017)
3D interaction is suddenly everywhere. But simply using 3D input or displays isn’t enough: 3D interfaces must be carefully designed for optimal user experience. is today’s most comprehensive primary reference to building state-of-the-art 3D user interfaces and interactions. Five pioneering researchers and practitioners cover the full spectrum of emerging applications, techniques, and best practices.
Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (2008)
Computers used to be for geeks. And geeks were fine with dealing with a difficult and finicky interface–they liked this–it was even a sort of badge of honor (e.g. the Unix geeks). But making the interface really intuitive and useful–think about the first Macintosh computers–took computers far far beyond the geek crowd.
Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design (2010)
Whether a marketing campaign or a museum exhibit, a video game or a complex control system, the design we see is the culmination of many concepts and practices brought together from a variety of disciplines. Because no one can be an expert on everything, designers have always had to scramble to find the information and know-how required to make a design work—until now.
UX Wireframe Sketchbook: Mobile Device UX/UI Wireframe Sketchbook for fast UI Prototype Design and Web App Usability Testing (2019)
VARIETY LENGTH OF WEB PAGE DESIGN FRAME: Provide 400 Mobile Device UI / UX Design templates with different length layouts to help capture your design idea without limitationNO GRID LINE: no grid line for freely design without idea blockingVIEWPORT GUIDELINE – Providing Device viewport guidelineSAVE MONEY & TIME – Using this sketchbook will help save you money by prototyping your User Interface on paper instead of spending hours to write code or paying a developer to create a prototypeFAIL FAST L…
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition (2005)
Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it’s hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn’t read Steve Krug’s “instant classic” on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike.…
Best Usability Books Worth Your Attention
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some usability books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Sustainable Design: HCI, Usability and Environmental Concerns
Author(s): Tomayess Issa, Pedro Isaias
ID: 3204184, Publisher: Springer, Year: 2022, Size: 5 Mb, Format: pdf
Game usability : advice from the experts for advancing UX strategy and practice in videogames
Author(s): Katherine Isbister (editor); Celia Hodent (editor)
ID: 3227480, Publisher: , Year: 2022, Size: 14 Mb, Format: pdf
Handbook of Usability and User Experience UX
Author(s): Soares
ID: 3261534, Publisher: , Year: 2022, Size: 26 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not definite. Some books are absolutely best-sellers according to The Wall Street Journal, others are composed by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.