Helpful tip: Most libraries can also pull books from the entire state through SearchOhio, and from university libraries through OhioLINK. Other libraries are connected to Clevnet. Ask your local librarian about these free services.

Books That Support Context

•  Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture, by Andrew Hinton
  • You’ll discover not only how to design for a given context, but also how design participates in making context.
• Context: The Effects of Environment on Product Design and Evaluation, edited by Herbert L. Meiselman
  • For product developers and designers, learn how context works and how it influences design decisions and outcomes.
• Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World, by Sam Sommers
  • A more entertaining read on just how powerful experienced situations are — and how greatly they affect how we think and act.
• Figure It Out: Getting from Information to Understanding, by Karl Fast and Stephen P. Anderson
  • Communicating information so that it is understandable is difficult. Enough! Learn how to communicate clearly.
• Creativity In Large-Scale Contexts, by Jonathan S. Feinstein
  • Yale Professor Jonathan S. Feinstein shows how cultural, economic, and social contexts can be “fruitfully” mined to help innovate smarter and faster.
• Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, by Sheryl Cababa
  • Closing the Loop will help you “…understand the systems and context that surround design decisions.”

New UX Books

• Confident UX: The Essential Skills for User Experience Design, by Adrian Bilan
• Strategic Content Design, by Erica Jorgensen
• Read, Write, Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet by Chris Dixon
• Laws of UX, Second Edition, by Jon Yablonski
• Universal Principles of UX, by Irene Peyreyra
• Immersive Content and Usability, by Preston So
• Design That Scales, by Dan Mall
• Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, by Ashley Shew

Information Architecture Titles of Interest

• Everyday Information Architecture, by Lisa Maria Marquis
  • Good UX starts with structured and organized information.
• Essential Topics in Information Architecture, by Anthony Rhem
  • Such topics include: Content Modeling, Metadata, Content Governance, IA and AI, IA and Big Data Analytics
• Digital Signifiers in an Architecture of Information, by Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa
  • A denser text covering such topics as NLP, Machine Learning, Spatial Representation, and Information Actualization.
• Information Architecture Synthesizing Through AI, by Hesham Elsherif
  • This book shows how the field of IA, UX and AI are all converging in innovation; such as through IA metadata to predictive UX to conversational AI.
• The Essence of Software, by Daniel Jackson
  • For software designers who are frustrated with common design issues, Jackson shows how to break necessary structures down into concepts for dependable results.
• Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places, by Jorge Arrango
  • Written by a former president of the Information Architecture Institute, his call to action here is cautionary — that, as a creator, “you are creating a context that will affect how users behave in it.”

UX Fundamentals

• Continuous Discovery Habits, by Teresa Torres
• Disruptive Research, by Larry Marine
• Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Drug
• How To Make Sense of Any Mess, by Abby Covert
• Intertwingled, by Peter Morville
• Mindful Design, by Scott Riley
• User Friendly, by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant
• Just Enough Research, by Erika Hall
• Make Your Customers Dance, by Marc Majers
• Designing with the Mind in Mind, by Jeff Johnson
• The User Experience Team of One, by Leah Burley

On Our Radar: Coming in September

Designing Information Architecture: A practical guide to structuring information spaces to meet people’s needs, by Pabini Gabriel-Petit

From the publisher: “The book is aimed primarily at aspiring information architects and UX professionals who create information architectures. The book also helps members of web development and product teams who need to understand what information architects do to work collaboratively with them.”