UX DESIGNER

Monster List of UX Books: Nov 2020 Updates

Check out the latest updates to the Monster List of UX Books.
New Book Lists
Newly Released Books
March
April
Remote Work for Design Teams by Ben Goldman, Abby Sinnott, & Greg Storey
August
Design Engineering Handbook by Natalya Shelburne, Adekunle Oduye, Kim Williams, & Eddie Lou
Design for Cognitive Bias by David Dylan Thomas
October
Presenting Design Work by Donna Spencer​​​​​​​
December
Books Recommended by Users
"1. This book covers ominicanal UX, both physical and digital.
2. The French version is a best seller in Quebec.
3. I am the author of the book. ;-)"
- Daniel Lafrenière

Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary (paid link) by Dan Hill
"An excellent book on Strategic Design strategies, defining a vocabulary for talking about strategic design"
- unnamed user

Recommend a book to add to the Monster List.
Book Reviews by Users
"Sorry Susan, I really wanted this to work out. I loved the premise of the book: lots of scientific studies summarized in an easy-to-understand way, with practical tips on how to apply them in design. But a little past the first third of this book I already knew I was going to hate it, so I started this list of <b>10 Things I Disliked About 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People:
1. Almost everything is actually pretty obvious stuff. If you just go through the chapter titles you'll already have a pretty good grasp of it.
2. She keeps promoting her own other book ""Neuro Web Design - What Makes Them Click"", not 2 times, not 3 times, but like 20 times throughout the book. The very proof of it is that I memorized it.
3. Most chapters are merely superficial summaries of one single study she read without proper comparison with several other studies that might have proved the contrary under different constraints - which happens quite often in Psychology.
4. There's a general idea that, if one study says something happens, then it's <i>universal</i>, and you must account for that on anything you design. She even gives a couple of ideas on how to do it, always in the Takeaways section - which weirdly enough I though was designed to summarize the chapter, not bring new information? 
5. In every chance possible she tries to extrapolate the article results often committing logical fallacies or just plain non-scientific thinking. Like in the chapter about the bidirectional influence between emotions and facial expressions: she implies that if you have small text on your design this will make people frown when reading, and this will make them feel unhappy with any content they come up with next. Like, seriously?
6. Some chapters are just Neuroscience jargon filled with absolutely useless technical names and references to parts of the brain. There's even one full page of illustrations of them, like if it made any sense to the general public.
7. The actual design of the book. It's plain awful and I hate everything about it, but especially the little stars she uses as bullets at the end of every chapter and that are slightly misaligned. Also, some pages where like 5% of it is content and the rest just white space because someone didn't do their job decently.
8. In a particular chapter, she promotes psychology theory that she herself admits is polemic and not taught anymore on psychology classes - I guess how many other times she does that without the proper disclaimer or without even knowing it.
9. There's something off about the general writing and the consistency of the tone and voice. I feel the book was done with a mix of random notes she took over many years without a proper care of how they'd fit together.
10. And, finally, I hate how this book is so popular in ""must-read design books"" lists, and even so highly rated here in this fine community of thoughtful readers. I don't get it.
Bonus: there are lots of references to USA culture that she just ignores the reader might not actually be from there.

I'd rate it just 1 start, but it deserved an extra one because of some chapters that save themselves, Like Chapter 66 is nice, probably because it's one of the few not entirely based on one specific paper. 85 is not nice, though."
- Cristiano Dalbem, Rating: 2/5

"Despite the title this book cover much more than just interviewing users, I could say it's a perfect primer on user research as a whole because it does cover the fundamentals, the why's, the contexts and the afters (the final chapter on instilling research culture in companies was a great surprise of a book that did so well on everything else also covering the mote corporative and political side of Design).

I loved how it's practical, very well written and laid out, with some nuggets of theory in some parts and real-life examples on others.

From all Research techniques, even with a personal bias to quantitative, I was always a fan of user interviews in any project situation because of the richness of the insights and the high potential for generating empathy in the team. Now after studying Portigal I'm even more certain of how powerful this tool can be, and feeling empowered to make it happen.

(oh and Steve seems to be the smartest and sweetest guy!)"
- Cristiano Dalbem, Rating: 5/5

"This book made me change the way I do user interviews. By applying the mom test you will learn how to improve your interview questions in such a way that you get much more useful answers from your users."
- Daniëlle Duijst, Rating: 5/5

"Must read for any designer"
- Yitty F, Rating: 5/5

Rate, review, and categorize any book on the Monster List.
Other Recently Added Books
Connect: Design for an Empathic Society (paid link) by Thomas Hammer-Jakobsen, Jesper Lund, Mie Bjerre, Anne Äyväri, Dick van Dijk, & Sabine Wildevuur
Design Systems Handbook by Roy Stanfield, Diana Mounter, Katie Sylor-Miller, Jina Anne, & Marco Suarez
Upcoming Books
2021
Surveys That Work by Caroline Jarrett
Getting Started in UX by Boon Sheridan
Research Practice by Gregg Bernstein
Conversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice by Diana Deibel & Rebecca Evanhoe
Product Management for UX Designers by christian crumlish
2022
TBD
Help Improve the List
Rate, review, and categorize any book on the list.
Suggest a book to add to the list.
Support the List
If you find the Monster List helpful, there are a few ways you can support it:
 • Buy a book on Amazon using one of the referral links in this post or other posts on my website. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make after opening one of those links. Please note that this only applies to Amazon links here on my website, not the links in the Monster List itself or my Medium posts about the list.
 • Sign up for Airtable using my referral link. I receive $10 credit at Airtable for every person that signs up for a free Airtable account with my link, which pays for one month of Airtable Plus.
 • Buy me a coffee. Do you already have an Airtable account and don’t want to buy anything on Amazon but still want to support the list? Consider making a donation through my Buy Me a Coffee page.
 • And, of course, share the list with others.
Thanks!
Other Updates
February 2021​​​​​​​
↑Back to Top