My Favourite Usability Books

People sometimes ask me what book to read to get started with usability. My recommendation depends on your background and focus:

IF (you like your knowledge applied and theory light) ->

  1. IF (mostly for web, interested in guerilla usability tests) ->
    Don’t make me think
    by Steve Krug
  2. IF (you’re a developer and want people to be happy with the solution you’re coding) ->
    User interface design for programmers by Joel Spolsky
  3. IF (love lots of examples, mostly from non-web GUIs) ->
    GUI Bloopers
    – Jeff Johnson

IF (you like theory and psychology) ->

The 1st and last ones are also great, if you’re not yet convinced that usability is a good thing and usually suspect that your system’s fine and your users are just too stupid to operate it.

While I’m at it: One thing that will improve the usability of everything you “produce” – software, emails, whatever – is good writing. The 2nd book has a great chapter on this. Alternatively there’s a great article on writing well by Su-Shee. It’s the best I’ve ever read on writing, ever. Everything you really need to know on just 3 pages. Read it in English or the original German.