Usability Books

Steve Krug, in Don't Make Me Think has written an engaging and enjoyable usability classic. It's a common-sense approach to usability that encompasses many of the ideas of the other books listed here, but in a fresh, straightforward and thoroughly entertaining manner. Could win my "The One Usability Book To Own If You Own Just One" Award.

The other finalist for "The One..." Award would have to be Andrew Chak's Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Websites. Not only a usability book, but one that considers how to drive different types of users to different actions on an e-commerce site. Outstanding book for those in the e-commerce world. Required reading before building a site designed to provoke customers to take action.

No Web usability bookshelf would be completed without Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability. An absolute classic. Love Jakob or hate him, you cannot ignore him or his work. Every designer working today owes him something.

Believe it or not, usability studies existed long before the Web came around. The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman is a landmark book in the field of usability. Written long before most people had heard of the Web, "The Design..." speaks about common objects like door handles, car radios and light switches and is guaranteed to change your view of the world, physical and virtual, that we live in.

The Humane Interface by Apple Macintosh creator Jef Raskin is a good introduction into the science of usability. It can get a little heavy on the math, but will provide solid underpinnings into why all of the things we "know" to be true in usability are so. Well worth the time.

Finally, Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed is a fascinating look at how Nielsen and team view home pages and their design in the context of a larger site. While not the first book I'd pick, it's definitely worth the read after you've digested the others on this list.

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