Read to Learn and Grow | Listing Top Ten UI Design Books for Every Level of UI Designer
Books still represent a vast ocean of knowledge if we choose to read them and spend some quality time. On top of that, reading UI design books will certainly help you upgrade your skills and your craft, not to mention giving you a new perspective and better knowledge.
If you are thinking about who will write a book on UI designing in an era where we consume content digitally, then you should read this guide. Here, we will talk about the best UI design books along with the reasoning why they are so great and better than others.
One search on Amazon.com revealed more than 250 UI design books available on the platform for sale. We have selected the top 10 from the entire collection of books on UI design for your perusal. At the end of the article, you will also find a suggestion for using the perfect UI design tool for all your future projects. Stay tuned.
Top 10 UI Books for Designers
1.The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman
This book talks about the way daily use things are designed and how to take inspiration from implementing the same in UI designing. If you will notice, the book's cover has a teapot with its handle and nozzle on the same side.
Interesting, right? The author wants to point out that good design is not just how everything looks, but it should also account for how it works. Notice the teapot with great aesthetics but an unfunctional design? Unlike this, your interface design must fuse good looks and a system that works in favor of the end-user. That is what you will find in this book explained with the help of simple yet interesting things.
2.UI is Communication - Everett N McKay
Everett N McKay shares some ideas in this book aimed at changing your thought process and solving real-life design problems. In other words, the author wishes to explain that a good design is not just shining pixels but is more about how you communicate with your end-users.
The interface is not just a screen displaying some pictures, it represents what a brand is talking with their customers, and your design will be the voice. Reading this one of the best UI design books, you will understand how to write down a conversation between an interface and the user.
3.Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug
This is one of the most recommended UI books by successful designers, and all for good reasons. Don't Make Me Think is a detailed excerpt on one of the three laws of Web and Mobile Usability.
The author talks about the importance of intuitive navigation and information design discussed by giving practical advice shared with love and commonsensical things.
All in all, you will find this book to be a smart companion that you can take anywhere and start reading because it is not only insightful but also an interesting read.
4.Designing with the Mind in Mind - Jeff Johnson
You cannot miss this UI design book if you want to make it big in the industry. Plus, read it when you are in full work mode and cannot get distracted by anything, as there are few technical concepts here. Don't be alarmed. The author has explained everything clearly.
You will find yourself immersed in perceptual and cognitive psychology, which explains how a user makes decisions, in turn, helping you leverage this knowledge to create a perceptive design. Also, you will learn about hand-eye coordination, attention span, and decision-making.
5.The Non-Designer's Design Book - Robin Williams
Creativity and good design have become the necessary requirement, no matter what kind of job you have. So, this is one of the best UI books, not only for designers but every professional who has something to do with creating a product for the end-user.
In this book, UI is explained with the help of four graphic design principles, including Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity (C.R.A.P). All the concepts are explained with precise language and added with humor yet easy to understand language.
6.Evil by Design - Chris Nodder
Chris Nodder helps you understand how designers should think about creating the design via explaining the seven deadly sins; hence, the terminology "Evil" is given. This is one of the best UI design books as it merges the concepts of psychology, marketing, and design concepts and how our users or we are susceptible to persuasive techniques.
You will find information on using social proof, build a path, lead the users to the desired direction, enhance the customer's commitment, etc. All these concepts are explained with the user's ability to make mistakes and leverage that to ensure that they are moving in the right direction just by your design.
7. About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design - Alan Cooper, et.al
Another one of the UI design books on our list, About Face, is more suitable to read for experienced designers. Regardless, this is one of the classics that every designer must read at least once in their lifetime.
About Face merges the aspects of interaction design, explaining it in the daily language meant to help you create better product design and development. You will find healthy strategies to build consumer personas and how to create a goal-oriented design.
8.Designing Interfaces - Jenifer Tidwell
If you are running out of ideas to create UI patterns or are not getting any, get this beauty. A rather different kind of book, this UI design book contains an extensive amount of design patterns for the user interface along with practical examples and use cases.
Along with this, you will know how to use a UI design pattern to influence, inspire, and persuade the end-users. If you are rather new to the design world and want to absorb some UI design pattern ideas and create a better comprehension of this sort of stuff, go for this one.
9.The Best Interface Is No Interface - Golden Krishna
This book addresses an emerging problem in the world of user interface designing. The designers have built an opinion that designing digital products is solely dependent on attracting the end-users. While working with this thought process, the designers may be forgetting that an ideal interface design is here to solve problems.
So, the author talks about these problems in the first segment of this, one of the most amazing UI design books, and in the second segment, he talks about the solutions. Here, you will find solutions like embracing the design process, using the digital media to your benefit, and adapting to the individuals.
10. Communicating Design - Dan M. Brown
Another core aspect of every UI/UX designer's job is to ensure communication within the design team, to create flowcharts, mind mapping, and ensuring that everything is relayed to the client.
Dan M Brown aims to deliver all the aspects through his book, helping the design teams and individual designers understand the importance and ways & means of adhering to the industry’s best practices for these tasks.
The best tool for UI design – Mockitt
Reading the top UI design books will only mean something if you can practice all the concepts and ideas you have absorbed. Also, the extent of knowledge and insights you will receive from these books requires working with a tool that gives you unlimited access in terms of tools, possibilities, and design opportunities.
Mockitt Design is, by far, one of the accomplished tools in the segment, which can clearly help you implement every new design concept you will learn. Beginning with the work process, using Mockitt Design is as simple as it gets. Access the required design tools easily and create unlimited variations with an extensive amount of editing tools.
Mockitt Design has a pre-built device-specific interface available to make sure that you are creating a precise design from the beginning to make things easier for you. Use the pre-defined dimensions to ensure that your design elements fit perfectly into the device screen.
For designing, you can use different kinds of shapes and even add images to the design, with several options to customize the same according to your requirements. Add color and patterns like linear, radial, and adjust the colors to different settings, including dark, saturation, hue, hard light, soft light and create different color effects.
Similarly, there is a system to work together with designers with the collaborative designing option. All you have to do is share the link with other members, and they can access the same design interface without creating an account.
That's the beauty of working with an online and free tool. Lastly, Mockitt Design has in-built Developer options to ensure a smooth handoff of the design elements to the development team to recreate the same design with coding and add the perfect dimensions.
Mockitt Design is the only tool that you will need and implement everything that you learn from the best UI design books and your experience as well. The more you use this tool, the better it gets.
Conclusion
Understanding the intricacies of modern-day designing is one of the core requirements to become a successful designer and align your work with the future. However, if you want to grow and develop your designing skills, it is essential to gain more knowledge and keep up with the dynamism of this field.
To this end, we have created a list of the top ten UI design books meant to enhance your thought process and perspective about UI designing. Ensure that you read what the book is about and then move ahead with getting the same.
Along with understanding the concepts, it is also essential to work with an adept UI designing tool. Mockitt Design is one such tool that can help you create the best designs from scratch regardless of your designing level. The smart and cloud-based tool conforms to the user's level of designing and helps them become a master at their craft.
