Basic bibliography to learn about UX Research
Within UX Research there is a wide range of bibliography, which may seem overwhelming for professionals who are just introducing themselves in this field. That is why we have arranged a short list with some of the most outstanding books about UX Research, differentiating them from those about UI.
We hope this UX book list is helpful for those who are interested in introducing themselves into the UX Research world, by covering different themes like usability analysis, different qualitative and quantitative investigation methods, step by step UX guide for user experience investigation, among others.
Observing the User Experience
Full title: Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research
Authors: Elizabeth goodman, Mike Kuniavsky and Andrea Moed
The breach between designers and developers and how each one imagines how their users are may be one of the biggest problems within product design. This user experience book will help you close that breach and understand what your users really want and need about your product, and if they will be able to appropriately use what you created.
Interviewing Users
Full title: Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights
Author: Steve Portigal
Interviews are one of the main UX tools within user research, however, many people assume they already possess this ability. Everyone can ask questions, right? Unfortunately this is not the case. This book provides us with priceless tools and techniques that will allow you to conduct highly informative interviews with anyone. You will be able to go from simply compiling data to uncovering powerful insights about people.
Investigation Design
Author: Patricia Leavy
This book presents a step-by-step guide to adequately use the five main approaches regarding investigation design: quantitative, qualitative, mixed method, based in arts and participative based in community investigation. Every chapter based on each approach follow a unique format: they give a template for an investigation purpose and explain in detail how to develop and complete each section.
User Experience Team of One
Full title: The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide
Author: Leah Buley
This book brings a collection of approaches that have a great impact and require less time and resources than most of the UX deliverables. Either if you are looking for an introduction to user experience design or if you are an experienced professional trying to push forward its organisation, this book will provide you with the tools and information that are essential to do more with less.
Think Like a UX Researcher
Full title: Think Like a UX Researcher
Authors: David Travis and Philip Hodgson
You will discover how to plan and develop UX investigations, analyse data, convincing teams into taking specific measures based on research results and how to develop a UX Research professional career. This book will help you to have a more strategic vision of product designing, and this way you will be able to focus on optimising user experience. From researchers, designers, project managers, Scrum Masters, business analysts to marketing managers will discover new tools, inspiration and ideas to update their thoughts, inspire their teams and improve their research abilities.
The User’s Journey
Full title: The User’s Journey: Storymapping Products That People Love
Author: Donna Lichaw
Just as in a good story, a successful design is a series of interesting moments structured through time. This book will teach you how, when and why you should use narrative structure, the technique and the base to ideate, build and validate a coherent vision of the User or Customer Journey, to achieve an attractive result. Find out how a story-centred approach can help you transform your product, functionality, landing page, flow, campaign, content or product strategy.
Measuring the User Experience
Full title: Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics
Authors: William Albert and Thomas Tullis
As more and more web design and UX professionals need to justify their design decisions based on solid and trustworthy data, this book provides with the quantitative analysis capabilities which those professionals need, plus some essential metrics.
Handbook of Usability Testing
Full title: Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
Authors: Jeffrey Rubin and Dona Chisnell
This handbook provides clear and step-by-step guidelines to help you evaluate your product’s usability. This book will give you the most important advantage in the business: products that work the way the users expect them to. You will learn to recognise the aspects that might limit usability, deciding where tests will take place, establishing an evaluation of usability plan, and many more.
If you are thinking about learning all about UX Research, take a look at our Advanced Research Specialisation Programme (this training is in Spanish).
This is a translation of an article posted in our corporate website:
