10 essential UI/UX books for business leaders (recommended by designers)

With so many books and so little time, it's a shame to waste it reading mediocre text when there are countless gems waiting to be discovered. That's where recommendations come to the rescue.

I reached out to product designers asking to named the book that brightens their career path with its vivid vision, its practical tips, or its fire gags.

Thus, we have the list of best books to understand UI/UX design, no way ultimate, but 100% worth your attention.

#1. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

There are many iconic design books, but The Design of Everyday Things has a superpower to change people. Everyone who’s read it learns to love design. Sometimes a feeling is so intense that people become designers themselves.

The Design of Everyday Things is what got my cousin into the design, who is now in that career, and I’m in the middle of reading it. It’s given me a new perspective on how designers think and basic fundamentals, definitely something worth reading!
u/WingsLDK

#2. UX for Beginners: A Crash Course in 100 Short Lessons by Joel Marsh

The next one on our list of UX books started as an email newsletter, grew into a blog, and became viral. And now you have it as a book, organized into small bite-sized lessons packed with actionable advice.

Really great starter UX book is “UX for beginners” (with the duck). It’s really digestible and I still use it as a quick reference or to jog ideas.
Mekkie Bansil, Founder & CEO at leadbound studio

#3. Designing Products People Love: How Great Designers Create Successful Products by Scott Hurff

The author interviews dozens of product leaders from X (ex-Twitter), Medium, Squarespace, and similar to get their secrets. Then, he shares all the secrets with you and teaches you to implement what you read into your own process.

This book can replace an intensive workshop with an actual product designer.
Maya, UI/UX designer at Eleken

#4. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan

Product design is in no way a lonely ranger story. It’s rather a story of a string section in an orchestra. Besides designers, every great product team consists of a project manager, developers, testers, marketers, researchers, analysts, and delivery managers. You can’t play your string section well without understanding how it cooperates with all the other people and processes inside of the product team.

Inspired is the perfect book to shed light on how everything works.

Chapter 11! Go read chapter 11 to grasp what product designers do!
Ilya, Founder & CEO of Eleken

#5. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug

To all the people — from all parts of the world — who have been so nice about this book for fourteen years. Especially the woman who said it made her laugh so hard that milk came out of her nose.
From Steve Krug’s preface to the third edition

Do you need any other reason to read what’s under the cover? Dasha, who recommended this book, has one for you. She says it offers the simplest (and, probably, funniest) way to figure out how usability works.

#6. Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design by Jennifer Tidwell, Charles Brewer, and Aynee Valencia

Designing Interfaces is holding its ground even sixteen years after the original edition. This thick book with a lovely mandarin duck is a stalwart design guide for all the possible interfaces.

A very fundamental book, chock-full with clear examples. It structures your knowledge and offers a new, more comprehensive, way of looking at interface design.
Maksym, Design Director at Eleken

#7. Change By Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations And Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown

To work as a designer you must think like a designer. To think like a designer, and incorporate design thinking into your working process, you must read Change by design.

[This book is] really good for understanding what is design thinking and the process behind it… and when done well, you really can uncover gems (i.e. get into your customers’ mind/perspective)
Daniela Marquez, VP of Product & Growth at Lovingly

#8. Evil by Design: Interaction Design to Lead Us Into Temptation by Chris Nodder

With the previous book, we learned how to ease the users’ lives. Now, welcome to the dark side of UX.

Evil by Design. Period.
JD

#9. UX Research: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products by Brad Nunnally and David Farkas

It’s a basic practical research book that explains everything about questions, methods and analysis in research.

[This book] is practical, has templates, and takes you through organizing research step by step.
Alicja Głowicka, UI/UX designer

#10. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

People say you shouldn’t ask your mom whether your business is a good idea — she’ll lie to you because she loves you. The author of the book argues that you shouldn’t ask anyone whether your business is a good idea, just because it’s a bad question.

If you want to validate your ideas by asking good questions, go read The Mom Test.
Maksym, Design Director at Eleken

What books did I miss? Would appreciate any suggestions in comments.

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