Design Resource Reading List

Doctor as Designer
5 min readJan 27, 2020

If you are interested in design, here is a recommended reading list that I have curated over the years from a variety of designers/explorations on the web/resource lists. By no means have I read all of these books but maybe someday! The order does not imply a hierarchy of value or need (beyond the first 6 books!). In addition, here are some recent recommendations from the Design Hive:
https://twitter.com/dburka/status/1384483516075810821 (Thread) https://twitter.com/steveportigal/status/1389671450622054401
https://twitter.com/ggoulding238/status/1389528720768049157 https://twitter.com/aarron/status/1389666092256219138 https://servicedesigntools.org/

Introduction

Just Enough Research
Erika Hall
https://abookapart.com/products/just-enough-research

Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights
Steve Portigal
https://portigal.com/Books/interviewing-users/

User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play
Cliff Kuang with Robert Fabricant https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374279756/

The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition
Don Norman
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465050654/

Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Create Extraordinary Products for Tomorrow’s Customers
Jan Chipchase
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062125699/

Health Design Thinking
Bon Ku, Ellen Lupton
healthdesignlab.com/book

Additional Books

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
Jake Knapp
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/150112174X/

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All
Tom Kelley
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/038534936X/

The Field Study Handbook
Jan Chipchase
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939727065/

Change by Design, Revised and Updated: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
Tim Brown
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061766089/

Innovation by Design: How Any Organization Can Leverage Design Thinking to Produce Change, Drive New Ideas, and Deliver Meaningful Solutions
Thomas Lockwood
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1632651165/

Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value
Thomas Lockwood
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1581156685/

Design Thinking Methodology Book
Emrah Yayici
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6058603757/

The Design Thinking Playbook: Mindful Digital Transformation of Teams, Products, Services, Businesses and Ecosystems
Michael Lewrick, Patrick Link, Larry Leifer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119467470/

User Research

Think Like a UX Researcher
David Travis
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1138365297/

UX Research: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products
Brad Nunnally, David Farkas
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/149195129X/

Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Steve Krug
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321965515/

Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests
Jeffrey Rubin, Dana Chisnell
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470185481/

UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want
Jaime Levy
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449372864/

User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product
Jeff Patton
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491904909/

Quantifying the User Experience: Practical Statistics for User Research
Jeff Sauro, James R. Lewis
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0128023082/

Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics
William Albert, Thomas Tullis
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0124157815/

Human Factors in Engineering and Design
Mark S. Sanders, Ernest J. McCormick
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007054901X/

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research
Mike Kuniavsky
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123848695/

Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services
Kim Goodwin
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470229101/

Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions
Bruce Hanington, Bella Martin
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592537561/

The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide Paperback
Leah Buley
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933820187/

Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value through Journeys
Jim Kalbach
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491923539/

Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams
Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491953608/

Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously
Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1633691888

Frame Innovation: Create New Thinking by Design (Design Thinking, Design Theory)
Kees Dorst
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262324318

Practical Design Discovery
Dan Brown
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1937557448/

Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior
Indi Young
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004VFUOQ0/

USERPALOOZA — A Field Researcher’s Guide: … because it’s easier to design for a customer you understand.
Nick Bowmast, Mat Tait
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0473458764/

Contextual Design: Design for Life (Interactive Technologies)
Karen Holtzblatt, Hugh Beyer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0128008946/

Rapid Contextual Design: A How-to Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design (Interactive Technologies)
Karen Holtzblatt, Jessamyn Burns Wendell, Shelley Wood
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123540518/

Using Software in Qualitative Research: A Step-by-Step Guide
Christina Silver
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LKDQUHS/

Remote Research: Real Users, Real Time, Real Research Paperback Color
Nate Bolt, Tony Tulathimutte
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010EX3ZPY/

Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces (Interactive Technologies)
Carolyn Snyder
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1558608702/

Moderating Usability Tests: Principles and Practices for Interacting (Interactive Technologies)
Joseph S. Dumas, Beth A. Loring
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123739330/

Usability Inspection Methods
Jakob Nielsen, Robert L. Mack
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471018775/

User Interface Inspection Methods: A User-Centered Design Method
Chauncey Wilson
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GUKSJLG/

Teaching Design: A Guide to Curriculum and Pedagogy for College Design Faculty and Teachers Who Use Design in Their Classrooms
Meredith Davis
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621535304/

Design and Cognition

Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374533555

Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious
Timothy D. Wilson
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674013824/

Design for How People Think: Using Brain Science to Build Better Products
John Whalen
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491985453/

How emotions are made: The Secret Life of the Brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1328915433/

Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst
Robert M Sapolsky
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143110918/

Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines
Jeff Johnson
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0124079148/

Visual Thinking for Design
Colin Ware
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123708966/

Ethnography/Qualitative

Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work
Indi Young
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933820489/

The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers
Johnny Saldana
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1473902495/

Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches
John W. Creswell, J. David Creswell
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1506386709/

Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo
Kristi Jackson, Pat Bazely
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1526449943/

Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes
Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, Linda L. Shaw
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226206831/

Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork
Allaine Cerwonka, Liisa H. Malkki
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226100316/

The Ethnographic Interview
James Spradley
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1478632070/

Participant Observation
James Spradley
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0030445019/

The ethnographic interview
James P Spradley
https://www.worldcat.org/title/ethnographicinterview/oclc/4493439/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true

The cultural experience: ethnography in complex society
David W Maccurdy; James P Spradley; Dianna J Shandy
https://www.worldcat.org/title/cultural-experience-ethnography-in-complex-society/oclc/758711636/editions?editionsView=true&referer=br

Analyzing qualitative data: systematic approaches
H Russell Bernard; Amber Wutich; Gery Wayne Ryan
https://www.worldcat.org/title/analyzing-qualitative-data-systematic-approaches/oclc/963636182/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true

Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work
Indi Young
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933820489

Understanding Your Users: A Practical Guide to User Research Methods Kathy Baxter, Catherine Courage, Kelly Caine
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0128002328/

Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories
Steve Portigal
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933820349/

Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook
Matthew B. Miles, A. Michael Huberman, Johnny Saldana
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/150635307X/

Universal Design

Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
Kat Holmes, John Maeda
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262038889/

Participatory Design

Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design
Liz Sanders, Pieter Stappers
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9063692846/

Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design
Jesper Simonsen
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415720214/

If you have suggestions to add to the list please let me know!

I tweet and blog about design, healthcare, and innovation as “Doctor as Designer”. Follow me on Twitter and sign up for my newsletter.

Disclosures: T1D Exchange, Grant funding from Lenovo.

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Doctor as Designer

Joyce Lee, MD, MPH, Physician, Designer, ACMIO, #EHR, #learninghealthsystems, #design, #makehealth http://www.doctorasdesigner.com/