Twelve Books That Made Me a Better Designer

At the start of the year I promised myself one book a month. Not design theory alone, but anything that would make me better at the job: research, writing, business and a little psychology.

Twelve months later, these are the ones I keep recommending.

Research and product thinking

• The Lean Startup taught me to treat every design as an experiment with a question behind it.
• The Mom Test changed how I run interviews: ask about past behaviour, never about future wishes.
• Continuous Discovery Habits turned research from a phase into a weekly routine.

Craft

• Refactoring UI is the most practical book on visual design I know. Short chapters, instant results.
• Don’t Make Me Think is twenty years old and still right about almost everything.
• Designing Interfaces is the pattern library I open whenever I am stuck.

Working with people

• Articulating Design Decisions helped me stop defending my work and start explaining it.
• Radical Candor made design critiques kinder and more useful at the same time.

What I would tell my younger self

Reading is not a substitute for practice, but it shortens the path. Take one idea from every book and try it on your next project. That is how twelve books become twelve better habits.