Books on User Interface Design and Related Topics

The criteria for inclusion of books in the list are explained following the list.

On This Page:

• Platform-Specific Official GUI Style-Guides
• Platform-Specific Unofficial GUI Style-Guides
• Platform-Independent GUI Guidelines
• Hybrid Design/Process Guidelines
• UI Process Guidelines
• Web UI Design
• Graphic Design
• Task-Analysis, Contextual and Participatory Design
• International UI Design
• Usability Testing, Evaluation, Engineering
• HCI Collections Pertaining to UI Design
• Business Analysis
• General Design

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Platform-Specific Official GUI Style-Guides

• Apple Computer: Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, Addison Wesley,1993.
• Open Software Foundation: CDE/Motif Style Guide: Rev 1.2, Prentice-Hall, 1993.
• Microsoft: The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design: An Application Design Guide, Microsoft Press, 1995.
• Microsoft: Microsoft Windows User Experience, Microsoft Press, 1999.
• Sun Microsystems: Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, Addison Wesley, 1999. (also, www.java.sun.com)

Platform-Specific Unofficial Style-Guides

• Culwin: A Java GUI Programmer's Primer, Prentice Hall, 1998.
• Howlett: Visual Interface Design for Windows, Wiley, 1996.
• Isensee, Rudd, Heck: The Art of Rapid Prototyping: User Interface Design for Windows. (out of print)
• Levine: Designing GUI Applications for Windows, IDG Books, 1994.
• McKay: Developing User Interfaces for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft, 1999.
• Mione: CDE and Motif: A Practical Primer, Prentice-Hall, 1997.
• Smith: ISO and ANSI Ergonomic Standards for Computer Products: A Guide to Implementation and Compliance, Prentice-Hall, 1996.

Platform-Independent GUI Guidelines

• Brown: Human-Computer Interaction Design Guidelines, Ablex, 1988.
• Smith & Mosier: Guidelines for Designing User-Interface Software, NTIS, 1986.
• Weinschenk & Yeo: Guidelines for Enterprise-Wide GUI Design, Wiley: 1995.
• Fowler & Stanwick: The GUI Style Guide, Academic Press, 1994.
• Fowler: GUI Design Handbook, McGraw-Hill, 1997.
• Marcus, Smilonich, Thompson: The Cross GUI Handbook for Multiplatform User Interface Design, Addison-Wesley, 1994.
• McFarland & Dayton: Design Guide for Multiplatform Graphical User Interfaces, Bellcore, 1995.

Hybrid Design Guidelines and Process Guidelines

• Arlov: GUI Design for Dummies, IDG Books, 1997.
• Bailey: Human Performance Engineering: Designing High Quality Professional user Interfaces for Computer Products, Applications, and Systems (3rd Ed), Prentice-Hall, 1996.
• Barfield: The User Interface: Concepts & Design, Addison Wesley, 1993.
• Bickford: Interface Design: The Art of Developing Easy-to-Use Software, Academic Press, 1997.
• Borenstein: Programming as if People Mattered: Friendly Programs, Software Engineering, and Other Noble Delusions, Princeton University Press, 1991.
• Chapanis: Human Factors in System Engineering, Wiley, 1996.
• Collins: Designing Object-Oriented User Interfaces, Benjamin-Cummings, 1995.
• Cooper: About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design, IDG Books, 1995.
• Galitz: User Interface Screen Design, Wiley, 1993.
• Galitz: It's Time to Clean Your Windows: Designing GUIs That Work, Wiley, 1993.
• Galitz: The Essential Guide to User Interface Design: An Introduction to GUI Design Principles and Techniques, Wiley, 1996.
• Hackos & Stevens: Standards for Online Communication, Wiley,1997.
• Heckel: The Elements of Friendly Software Design, Sybex, 1991.
• Hix & Hartson: Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product and Process, Wiley, 1993.
• Isaacs & Walendowski: Designing From Both Sides of the Screen: How Designers and Engineers Can Collaborate to Build Cooperative Technology, SAMS, 2001.
• Johnson: GUI Bloopers, Morgan Kaufmann, 2000.
• Lansdale & Ormerod: Understanding Interfaces: A Handbook of Human-Computer Dialogue, Academic Press, 1994.
• Mandel: The Elements of User Interface Design, Wiley, 1997.
• Martin & Eastwood: The User Interface Design Handbook for the Application Programmer, Wiley, 1996.
• Mayhew: Principles And Guidelines In Software User Interface Design, Prentice Hall, 1991.
• Mayhew: The Usability Engineering Lifecycle: A Practitioner's Handbook for User Interface Design, Morgan-Kaufmann, 1999.
• Minasi: Secrets of Effective GUI Design. SYBEX, 1994.
• Newman & Lamming: Interactive System Design, Addison-Wesley: 1995.
• Norman, K.L.: The Psychology of Menu Selection: Designing Cognitive Control at the Human/Computer Interface, Ablex, 1991.
• Olsen: Developing User Interfaces, Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.
• Raskin: The Humane Interface, Addison-Wesley, 2000.
• Rubin: User Interface Design for Computer Systems, Prentice Hall, 1988.
• Rubinstein & Hersh: The Human Factor: Designing Computer Systems for People, Digital Press, 1984.
• Sayles: GUI-Based Design and Development for Client-Server Applications, Wiley, 1994.
• Shneiderman: Designing the User Interface (3rd ed), Addison Wesley, 1997.
• Tognazzini: Tog on Interface, Addison Wesley, 1992. (out of print)
• Tognazzini: Tog on Software Design, Addison Wesley, 1995.
• Weinschenk, Jamar, Yeo: GUI Design Essentials, Wiley, 1997.
• Weiss: Making Computers People-Literate, Jossey-Bass, 1994.
• Zetie: Practical User Interface Design: Making GUIs Work, McGraw-Hill, 1995.

UI Process Guidelines

• Bauersfeld: Software by Design: Creating People Friendly Software, M&T Books, 1994.
• Carroll (ed): Scenario-based Design: Envisioning Work and Technology in System Development, Wiley, 1995.
• Collins: Designing Object-Oriented User Interfaces, Addison Wesley, 1995.
• Constantine & Lockwood: Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of User-Centered Design, ACM Press, 1999.
• Eberts: User Interface Design, Prentice Hall, 1993.
• Kristoff & Satran: Interactivity by design: Creating and Communicating with New Media, Adobe Press, 1995.
• Kuniavsky: Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.
• Lewis & Rieman: Task-Centered User Interface Design: A Practical Introduction, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1993.
• Macaulay: Human-Computer Interaction for Software Designers, International Thomson Computer Press, 1995.
• Monk, Wright, Haber, Davenport: Improving Your Human-Computer Interface: A Practical Technique, Prentice Hall, 1993.
• Redmond-Pyle, Moore, and Pyle: Graphical User Interface Design and Evaluation: A Practical Process, Prentice Hall, 1995.
• Roberts & Berry: Designing for the User with OVID: Bridging the Gap Between Software Engineering and User Interface Design, Macmillan Technical, 1998.
• Rosson & Carroll: Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human Computer Interaction, Morgan Kaufmann, 2001
• Ruble: Practical Analysis and Design for Client/Server and GUI Systems, Yourdon, 1997.
• Snyder: Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.
• Treu: User Interface Design: A Structured Approach, Plenum, 1994.
• Wixon & Ramsey (eds.): Field Methods Casebook for Software Design, Wiley, 1996.
• Wood (ed.): User Interface Design: Bridging the Gap from User Requirements to Design, CRC Press, 1997.

Web UI Design

• Bain & Gray: Looking Good Online: The Ultimate Resource to Creating Effective Web Designs, Ventana, 1996.
• Brinck et al: Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites That Work, Morgan Kaufmann, 2001.
• Flanders & Willis: Web Pages That Suck, Sybex, 1997. (Also www.webpagesthatsuck.com)
• Flanders & Peters: Son of Web Pages That Suck, Sybex, 2002. (Also www.fixingyourwebsite.com)
• Fleming & Koman: Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience, O'Reilly, 1998.
• Forsythe, Grose, Ratner (eds): Human Factors and Web Development, Erlbaum, 1997.
• Goto & Cotler: Web Redesign: Workflow that Works, New Riders, 2001.
• Johnson: Web Bloopers: 60 Common Web Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.
• Krug: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, QUE, 2000.
• Lynch & Horton: Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, Yale U Press, 1999.
• Morris et al: Web Page Design: A Different Multimedia, Prentice Hall, 1996.
• Niederst & Koman: Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference, O'Reilly, 1998.
• Nielsen: Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, New Riders, 2000.
• Nielsen & Tahir: Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed, New Riders, 2001.
• Parker: Guide to Web Content and Design: Eight Steps to Web Site Success, MIS Press, 1997.
• Pfaffenberger: The Elements of Hypertext Style, Academic Press, 1997.
• Rosenfeld & Morville: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, O'Reilly, 1998.
• Spool et al: Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide, Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.
• Sano: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites: A Visual Design Methodology, Wiley, 1996.
• Sather et al. (eds): Creating Killer Interactive Web Sites: The Art of Integrating Interactivity and Design, Hayden Books, 1997.
• Siegel: Creating Killer Web Sites (2nd ed.), Hayden Books, 1997.
• Siegel: Secrets of Successful Web Sites: Project Management on the World Wide Web, Hayden Books, 1997.
• Van Duyne et al: The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience, Addison-Wesley, 2002.
• Veen: Hotwired Style: Principles for Building Smart Web Sites, Hardwired, 1997.

Graphic Design

• Bertin: Graphics and Graphic Information Processing, de Gruyter, 1981.
• Cleveland: The Elements of Graphing Data, Wadsworth, 1985.
• Harris: Information graphics: A comprehensive illustrated reference, Management Graphics, 1996.
• Horton: The Icon Book: Visual Symbols for Computer Systems and Documentation, Wiley, 1994.
• Howlett: Visual Interface Design for Windows, Wiley, 1996.
• Marcus: Graphic Design for Electronic Documents and User Interfaces, Addison-Wesley, 1992.
• Margolin & Buchanon (eds): The Idea of Design, MIT Press, 1995.
• Mullet & Sano: Designing Visual Interfaces, SunSoft Press/Prentice Hall, 1995.
• Tufte: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, 1983.
• Tufte: Envisioning Information, Graphics Press, 1990.

Task-Analysis, Contextual and Participatory Design

• Banyon & Green: Conceptual Modelling for User Interface Development, Springer, 1998.
• Beyer & Holtzblatt: Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, Morgan-Kaufmann, 1998.
• Bodker (ed): Through the Interface: A Human Activity Approach to User Interface Design, Erlbaum, 1990.
• Ehn: Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts, Almquist and Wiksell (Sweden), 1988. (out of print)
• Greenbaum & Kyng (eds): Design at Work, Erlbaum, 1991.
• Hackos & Redish: User and Task Analysis for Interface Design, Wiley, 1998.
• Kirwan & Ainsworth (eds): A Guide to Task Analysis, Taylor & Francis, 1992.
• Kyng & Mathiassen (eds): Computers and Design in Context, MIT Press, 1997.
• Schuler & Namioka (eds): Participatory Design: Principles and Practices, Erlbaum 1993.

International UI Design

• Del Galdo & Nielsen (eds): International User Interfaces, Wiley, 1996.
• Fernandes: Global Interface Design: A Guide to Designing International User Interfaces, Academic Press, 1995.
• Jones et al: A Digital Guide: Developing International User Information, Digital Press, 1992.
• Luong et al: Internationalization: Developing Software for Global Markets, Wiley, 1995.

Usability Testing, Evaluation, Engineering

• Dumas & Redish: A Practical Guide to Usability Testing, Ablex Publishing, 1993.
• Head: Design Wise: A Guide to Evaluation the Interface Design of Information Resources, Information Today, 1999.
• Lindgaard: Usability Testing and System Evaluation: A Guide for Designing Useful Computer Systems. Chapman & Hall, 1994.
• Nielsen: Usability Engineering, Academic Press, 1993.
• Nielsen & Mack (eds): Usability Inspection Methods, Wiley, 1994.
• Rubin: Handbook of Usability Testing, Wiley, 1994.
• Treu: User Interface Evaluation: A Structured Approach, Plenum, 1994.
• Wiklund (ed): Usability in Practice: How Companies Develop User-Friendly Products, Academic Press, 1994.

HCI Collections Pertaining to UI Design

• Adler & Winograd (eds): Usability: Turning Technologies into Tools, Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Baecker & Buxton (eds): Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Morgan-Kaufmann Publishers, 1987.
• Baecker, Grudin, et. al. (eds): Human-Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000, Morgan-Kaufmann, 1995.
• Carey (ed): Human Factors in Information Systems: The Relationship Between User Interface Design and Human Performance, Ablex, 1997.
• Dix, Finlay, Abowd, Beale (eds): Human-Computer Interaction (2nd Ed), Prentice Hall, 1998.
• Druin, A. (ed.): The Design of Children's Technology, Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.
• Gram & Cockton (eds): Design Principles for Interactive Systems, Chapman and Hill, 1996.
• Helander, Landauer, Prabhu (eds): Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (2nd Ed), Elsevier, 1997.
• Jacobson (ed): Information Design, MIT Press, 1999.
• Karat (ed): Taking Software Design Seriously: Practical Techniques for Human-Computer Interaction Design, Academic Press, 1991.
• Laurel (ed): The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, Addison Wesley, 1990.
• Nielsen (ed): Coordinating User Interfaces for Consistency, Academic Press, 1989.
• Norman & Draper (eds): User Centered System Design, Erlbaum, 1986.
• Perlman, Green, Wogalter (eds): Human Factors Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction, HFES, 1995.
• Preece & Keller (eds): Readings in Human-Computer Interaction, Prentice-Hall, 1990.
• Preece (ed): A Guide to Usability: Human Factors in Computing, Addison-Wesley, 1993.
• Preece et al (eds): Human-Computer Interaction, Addison-Wesley, 1994.
• Rudisill, Lewis, Polson, McKay (eds): Human-Computer Interface Design, Morgan-Kaufmann, 1996.
• Winograd (ed): Bringing Design to Software, Addison-Wesley, 1996.
• Wixon & Ramey (eds): Field Methods Casebook for Software Design, Wiley, 1996.

Business Analysis of Usability and User-Centered Design

• Bias and Mayhew: Cost-Justifying Usability, Academic Press, 1994.
• Cooper: The Inmates are Running the Asylum, SAMS, 1999.
• Landauer: The Trouble With Computers, MIT Press, 1995.
• Norman: The Invisible Computer, MIT Press, 1999.
• Trenner & Bawa, J. (eds): The Politics of Usability: A Practical Guide to Designing Usable Systems in Industry, Springer-Verlag, 1998.
• Wiklund (ed): Usability in Practice: How Companies Develop User-Friendly Products, Academic Press, 1994.

General Design

• Norman: The Design of Everyday Things, Basic Books, 1988.
• Norman: Things That Make Us Smart, Perseus Press, 1994.

Criteria for Inclusion in this List of UI Design Books

The books in this list are intended primarily for user-interface designers, software graphic designers, and UI programmers, that is: UI practitioners. These books can be about any aspect of the UI design process: design guidelines, design process, evaluation and testing, benefit analysis. UI design books are a small subset of all books on Human-Computer Interaction.

This list excludes books written primarily about research topics for research-oriented readers. I don't consider those to be UI design books, even though some designers may read some of them for grounding in theory, methodology, and results. Similarly, the list excludes books that are intended as broad introductions to the entire field of Human-Computer Interaction, or that are explorations of future HCI technologies. A third type of book I have excluded are books specifically about how to implement user-interfaces using a particular GUI toolkit, e.g., "Developing GUIs with the Java Swing Toolkit" or "Programming with OSF/Motif Widgets". I consider those UI implementation books, not design books.