The Most Interesting UX eBooks Published in 2016

The latest available educational UX resources make me second guess my formal education. I have a degree in graphic design, but everything I learned about UX and product development has come from the sweat of my own brow.

Self-taught designers are empowered even more as design thought-leaders promote new thinking through a highly affordable and simple medium: eBooks. Without manufacturers or publishers, design knowledge is more accessible than ever.

Take some time to bolster your UX Library with some of the best eBooks of 2016.

Hot off the press! Brad just released his book this week! Pro-tip: it can be read online at atomicdesign.bradfrost.com, though you should totally support Brad and his new book. Atomic Design is the go-to for creating pattern libraries that allow for large-scale designs. Working on an in-house design team with an Agile engineering team, I can’t say how valuable these ideas are.

The only motivation should you need to read this eBook is knowing Samuel Hulick wrote the foreword (creator of UserOnboard). Anyone who has worked on a product knows that onboarding is one of the most difficult arts to master, and Intercom do a great job of breaking it down — from designing your product to getting your organization on board (get it?).

You can’t have a book list without an O’Reilly book, right? Contrary to popular belief, there’s a lot more to prototyping than picking which app you want to use. Digital designers still have much to learn from the timeless lessons of physical media. Kathryn walks through the goals and outcomes of prototyping, and how to create the right prototyping for your project.

This eBook is unique because it’s constantly updated to include the latest free fonts. Jeremiah offers alternatives to the most popular fonts by providing links and comparisons. If you haven’t entered the world of free fonts, you should, as there is a whole new world of fonts beyond Typekit.

Okay, UXPin has well over 100 eBooks these days so it felt necessary to include one in this list. In this eBook, several companies and their design teams show how things work behind the curtain. If you work at an awesome company like me, you’re constantly looking to improve your design process. Read about the inner workings how Slack, Autodesk, 3M and more.

I’m always anxious to get my hands on industry surveys and reports. InVision’s industry report is a good gut check for your and your team. Are you ahead of the curve? Are you paid fairly? What tools is everyone using these days, anyways?

Bonus:

While this is definitely not from 2016, it’s worth mentioning. Think gold, my friends. Even if Vignelli doesn’t follow your style, this is still worth your time. No designer can escape the importance of typography and grids, and one of the masters has shared everything he knows with you.