Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
Robert C. Martin
4.7 on Amazon
43 HN comments
Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems
Martin Kleppmann
4.8 on Amazon
34 HN comments
The Martian
Andy Weir, Wil Wheaton, et al.
4.7 on Amazon
27 HN comments
The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition: Your Journey to Mastery
David Thomas, Andrew Hunt, et al.
4.8 on Amazon
27 HN comments
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson, Jonathan Davis, et al.
4.3 on Amazon
24 HN comments
The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You
Rob Fitzpatrick and Robfitz Ltd
4.7 on Amazon
22 HN comments
Dune
Frank Herbert, Scott Brick, et al.
4.7 on Amazon
20 HN comments
Seveneves: A Novel
Neal Stephenson, Mary Robinette Kowal, et al.
4.1 on Amazon
20 HN comments
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
Matthew Walker, Steve West, et al.
4.7 on Amazon
19 HN comments
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir, Ray Porter, et al.
4.7 on Amazon
18 HN comments
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
Chris Voss, Michael Kramer, et al.
4.8 on Amazon
18 HN comments
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
4.6 on Amazon
16 HN comments
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman, Patrick Egan, et al.
4.6 on Amazon
16 HN comments
The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition
Don Norman
4.6 on Amazon
15 HN comments
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
Christopher Alexander , Sara Ishikawa , et al.
4.7 on Amazon
15 HN comments
verdvermonAug 18, 2021
The Design of Everyday Things is a classic, though not ui focused.
mcphageonJuly 14, 2021
bob1029onJune 9, 2021
Building shitty UI because it looks cool in your marketing materials is doing a criminal disservice to your users and ultimately your business.
cinntaileonMar 28, 2021
beyondcomputeonJuly 24, 2021
rwmjonJuly 20, 2021
enhdlessonApr 23, 2021
- The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is the classic for learning design.
- Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug is another classic, and very digestible.
- Refactoring UI is a good book for those coming from a developer perspective: https://refactoringui.com/book/
- Mismatch by Kat Holmes talks about the importance of inclusive design for both usability and innovation.
- Not a book, but Apple's Human Interface Guidelines are excellent: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
- Similarly, just try reading the design principles of companies with good design, like Shopify: https://polaris.shopify.com/experiences/crafting-admin
- If you're interested in building a design system, I would start with InVision's Design Systems Handbook: https://www.designbetter.co/design-systems-handbook
Ultimately, good design is informed by research - what is the problem you're trying to solve? What is the user's goal and how can you make that easy for them to achieve? What are you trying to communicate? Start with interviewing 5+ potential users, distilling that data into actionable opportunities, and sketching wireframes on paper before jumping into Figma.
ChrisMarshallNYonMay 1, 2021
The issue is that many designers and engineers loathe Usability and Accessibility people (like Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman).
For me, it all started with Don Norman's excellent book The Design of Everyday Things[0] (nee The Psychology of Everyday Things).
Reading that book changed the way that I view the world. I can't walk through a door, anymore, without evaluating its affordances and usability.
The challenge (for me) is melding usability and aesthetics. In my experience, designing and implementing a truly usable software interface is hard. It's also highly iterative. A lot of "running things up the flagpole" stuff. I throw out a lot of code, and slaughter a lot of sacred cows.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things
rahimnathwanionJune 9, 2021
Overview books:
* Inspired
* The Product Manager’s Desk Reference
* The Lean Startup
* Agile Product Management with Scrum
Interview preparation (good for breadth, even if you’re not applying for jobs):
* Decode & Conquer
* Cracking the PM interview
Other good books for PMs:
* Hooked
* The Design of Everyday Things
* Zero to One
* Traction
ScandiravianonApr 25, 2021
It teaches several ways to prototype design, how to evaluate whether your design is efficient, and how to develop a design oriented mindset
It not only helped me make better designs, but also made me a better coder, because I started thinking about my code as a product to be used by others
pramodbiligirionAug 7, 2021
For more specific techniques, the Learning Web Design 5th Edition (by Jenna Something) is very good.
I skimmed Don’t Make Me Think, which validated some of my own thoughts and helps you avoid silly oversights. I also read Design of Everyday Things but found it very lengthy and somewhat pompous. Not sure that I got much out of it.
On that page someone has linked to a bunch of MIT material. I didn’t check that out in detail. Might be good... I don’t know.
Thanks for the bug report on the modal. Would have never noticed as I navigate to my site directly and never click the Back button there.
mikestewonJuly 14, 2021
bwh2onApr 23, 2021
However, I recently read The Design of Everyday Things and was really disappointed. The sections about door handles, stoves, and elevator buttons are interesting but that's only 1/3 of the book. The rest is about iterative design and system failure, for which there are better books like The Lean Startup and Drift Into Failure.
JugurthaonApr 16, 2021
"The Complete Problem Solver", "Change by Design", "The Design of Everyday Things", "Jobs to Be Done", concepts like non-consumption. Questions that confirm that feature requests are valid and avoid solving Y problem when the actual problem is X. Thought processes to prioritize work and focus on what matters.
Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26814150
Then books, concepts, and mindsets that help software engineers reap the reward of the software they write. Marketing, sales, prospecting, pricing, communication.
I believe there is a huge quantity of beautiful, idiomatic, code that solves no real problem, and a huge number of software engineers who have trouble monetizing their skill, or get stuck in unfulfilling roles because they have not found a way to shape an interesting one for themselves.
A few examples of threads searching for answers one usually answers through piecing together many resources, books, and life experiences:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26805216
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26650563
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26550896
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26465891
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26446169
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26366426
adolphonJuly 14, 2021
The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used for English Romanesque architecture. The Normans introduced large numbers of castles and fortifications including Norman keeps, and at the same time monasteries, abbeys, churches and cathedrals, in a style characterised by the usual Romanesque rounded arches (particularly over windows and doorways) and especially massive proportions compared to other regional variations of the style.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_architecture
This:
Donald Arthur Norman (born December 25, 1935)[2][3] is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego.[4] He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman