brightly colored food

Run out of things to read? Want to see what others cite, read, or otherwise recommend?

Last week I was organizing a couple of binders full of mostly academic HCI articles and I happened on some good reading lists I’d printed out, fearful the pages might disappear eventually. I typed them in, and they’re all still there. I had a couple of others bookmarked more recently, so I thought I’d share them. Call this a meta-reading list.

Yes, there are redundancies across lists. Use it as an indicator for the “classics”, though there are also some books that seem like real gems that are only on one or two lists. Except for a couple of my faves near the top, they’re in no particular order for now. While I don’t have my own recommended list, I do have a list of some stuff that sounds interesting.

If enough people find this interesting and/or want to contribute other lists (I’m sure I’ve missed a ton), I’ll probably turn this into its own section on the site.
- freeware
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DesignWritings: Reading List
Erin Malone’s reading list. Nicely divided into subject areas, it shortlists the best of each category. No comments about the books. Recommended.

A look in my HCI bookshelf
From Jonas Löwgren. Mostly academic, and a fairly good overview of HCI literature. Thoughtful commentary on each book.

Kem’s Interaction Design Reading List
From Ken Mohnkern, an Interaction Designer at Carnegie Mellon. Strong communication, media, design emphasis. No comments. Recommended.

Cooper Interaction: Book Reviews
From Alan Cooper. A fairly diverse and interesting-sounding list. Thoughtful commentary and why he likes/recommends each book. With photos and comments.

UIWeb: Annotated References on Design
From Scott Berkun. Another short, excellent, “canon of user-experience design” type lists.

ACIA IA Guide
Everything on information architecture, from the crew at ACIA. Like the good IAs they are, you can view by Author, Title, Subject, or Expert Picks.

Viridian Design: Recommended Books
From Bruce Sterling and his crew of ecological designers/hackers in the Viridian Design community. Industrial design, product design, history, art. Interesting, insightful recommendations. With comments.

Elegant Hack: Information Architecture and User Centered Design Reading List
What seems most likely to become the UX/IA “canon”, from Christina. Broad-ranging, nice selections. With comments, photos.

Peterme: Interface Design Recommended Reading List
A list from Peter, from a couple of years back. With comments. I *know* he reads interesting stuff - maybe he’ll update his list…

WebWord.com: Recommended Books
John Rhodes’ wide-ranging list on everything from usability (obviously) to science fiction (?). With comments.

STC Information Design: Booklist
Essential works, as voted by the InfoDesign Cafe members. Fairly broad, with an emphasis on information design. There’s also selected additional works. No comments.

Suggested Readings in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), User Interface (UI) Development, & Human Factors (HF)
From Gary Perlman, who runs HCI Bibliography. More academic than most of the other lists. With comments and photos.

20th Century Information Design Bibliography
From a distance class taught out of RIT. Information/Graphic Design, typography, visual literacy. No comments.

Usability Bookshelf
From the STC Usability SIG. Huge, with comments. Not just about usability, it’s a fairly comprehensive survey of recent publications in HCI/UX/usability. With some comments. Check out their Top 10 for a “best of” list.

Weinschenk Consulting: Bibliography
Good overview list of HCI books. With comments.