DEVELOPING DESIGN SKILLS

Design Sprint — A practical guide

Designers and UX leaders who build their chops in a traditional “waterfall” development environment sometimes struggle to find ways to adapt and incorporate their methodologies and activities into agile.

Richard Banfield, C Todd Lombardo, Trace Wax share their perspective and experience with the Design Sprint as a way to create great products.

Design is a Job

If you are a designer, you have to read this book. It does not matter whether you are part of an in-house team, work with an agency or have your own consulting practice. Mike Monteiro does a fantastic job depressing you with a big reality check first and then gives you the tools and the practical information to avoid mistakes and do a better job.

You’re My Favorite Client

The sequel to “Design is a Job,” but this time, Mike Monteiro focus is on the client. He argues that you should give this book to your clients… but more important, he gives you the tools to recognize landmines and navigate hurdles to ensure the success of the project.

Just Enough Research

Erika Hall is a strong proponent of doing “just enough research” to inform your design decisions to ensure the success of your project, removing subjectivity out of the process. You can see Erika deliver a talk on this topic at An Event Apart — Just Enough Research

The UX Team of One

Leah Buley nails this “survival guide” for design and research. You can make it happen, and you do not have to break the bank while doing it.

UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design

Laura Klein is one of the pioneers of successfully integrating UX into Lean Startup.

How to Make Sense of Any Mess — Information Architecture for Everybody

I will just quote Dan Mall on this great book by Abby Covert

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read

Discussing Design — Improving Communication and Collaboration through Critique

Throughout my career, I have been a proponent of the importance of “design peer reviews.” I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly take place in some internal design review sessions. Aaron Irizarry and adam connor describe the framework in simple terms, to ensure that the design critique is productive and the feedback is constructive.

UX Portfolio Resources

Last, but not least, I have collected a few resources about UX Portfolio Design. They are handy in the context of the design storm that Jared M. Spool generated…