Charles Mauro CHFP
The “A” List: We frequently receive requests from colleagues, clients, and journalists for recommended reading lists on topics covering our expertise in UX design, usability research and human factors engineering. These requests prompted us to pull from our research library (yes, we still have real books) 30+ books which our professional staff felt should be considered primary conceptual literature for anyone well-read in the theory and practice of UX design and research.
A Surprising List: When we pooled the selected books for inclusion, we were a bit surprised. Most of the selected texts were published some time ago… in some cases, our selections were out of print. This set us to thinking: Why did we end up with books representing the best theory on UX design published before the term was even invented?
The answer resides in the fact that UX design, as we define it, encompasses a vast field of human-machine interaction variables covering cognitive processes, decision-making, task design, information architecture, graphic design, interactive brand development, market research, retail store design, product design, web design and at least a dozen other primary fields of expertise.
Where to Start: UX design is by definition a vast and overlapping set of expertise areas that find focus based on the nature of a specific UX design problem. Therefore, to be well-read on this subject actually requires reading very diverse professional literature. The following 30+ books are those we consider the best general expositions on a given topic area that we know from professional experience is functionally or theoretically applicable to UX Design and Research.
It may come as a surprise to those of you who came to UX in the last decade that there was a vast and teeming world of man-machine science and related research before there was anything like the iPhone or even the Internet. Our list is as much about the history of man-machine design as it is about the future of UX.
Please Note: We have reviewed many UX-specific books for this list but have found that most of the new texts, including several popular books on UX design, are not nearly as useful as the original texts on which they are based. Most of the books on our list can be easily found online at Amazon.com or at other online sources. Many are out of print but not out of sight. If you purchase any of these books from Amazon or any other source, we do not receive any compensation. If you have books you feel we missed, send us a comment and if we agree with your suggestion it will be added to the list with a citation. We view our list, like our associated list of important recent papers on UX, as a living entity. Finally, if you are an author and your book(s) is not on the list, please do not send us a snarky comment. We will simply ignore it.
Thank you,
Charles L Mauro CHFP
President/Founder
Mauro New Media
Continue Reading…
The February issue of Ergonomics In Design features the award-winning case study by Mauro Usability Science covering ergonomic workstation design for Tiffany & Company. The program covered a multi-year engagement with Tiffany involving execution of large-sample ergonomic workstation and production analysis, with a focus on risk mitigation and process improvement through the application of user-centered design methodologies. The program included complex ergonomic field audits and analysis, followed by design and production of a new series of ergonomic workstation configurations. The following link provides access to the full article: Ergonomic Redesign of a Traditional Jewelry-Polishing Workstation. Please note: the publication is behind the SAGE paywall. Continue Reading…
Recently, I was invited to speak at the Northeast Conference of the Industrial Designers Society of America on intellectual property and crowd-funding (CF). I am not a lawyer but I have consulted with some of the best around. Over the past 35 years I have been an expert witness in over 75 major patent cases related to product design, industrial design and GUI design. That experience has taught me a great deal about how innovators deal with the realities of their intellectual property. 
