Design

The Best Books for Learning New Design Methods

See Kady's curated list of UX design methods books and how they can help you improve your research through design thinking and other UX design methodologies.

6 min
March 5, 2020
Kady Jesko
Senior Designer

Ah, remember when the last time you picked up a physical book to learn new things?

For some of us, this may have been years ago, in high school, or even college. Most designers nowadays opt to hop on Google and conduct a quick search or read blog posts when they want to learn further. However, few designers today tend to reach for physical books when they want to learn about new design methods they can add to their skillset.

What are UX design methods?

Design methods are procedures, techniques, aids, or tools for designing. They offer a number of different kinds of activities that a designer might use within an overall design process. - Wikipedia

Today, designers everywhere use a variety of design methods throughout every project. Collecting user-data through interviews, facilitating user groups, and conducting usability tests are just a few of the most common methods that designers use daily.

How to discover uncommon design methods

Do you ever wonder what other common, or better yet, uncommon methods exist? You may find yourself wondering about other potential methods, ones that are rarely used or often unmentioned in research method blog posts.

Most blogs and articles online usually speak to the most common design methods because no one wants to read a never-ending article. This leads to a focus on common methods that most of us already use. Even though books can be used as tools - easily picked up and quickly flipped through, they can offer us an avenue as designers to dive deeper into details of methods. These details may even be ones we didn't know existed; allowing us to understand a wider breadth.

design graphic in book

Books allow for expansion of design method knowledge

Books about various design methods are not only helpful in growing and expanding a designers' method toolbox – they also allow them to look deeper at a plethora of methods that may specifically correlate to their project; even within specific points of that project. Over the last few years, I've had wonderful opportunities to go through several dozen design method books - so instead of you having to figure out which ones might be most useful, I put together a list.

Recommended UX design method books

Some of the most useful design method books I have found offer a large range of design methods - both common and uncommon. Below is a list to help you spend more time identifying and learning useful design methods, and less time exploring all the various books.

design methods 1 book cover

Design Methods 1: 200 Ways to Apply Design Thinking

by Robert Curedale

The book is excellent at briefly explaining methods before showing how to execute them, and giving the list of supplies needed. It even lists resources for further learning about each method and its origins.

Get the book

the field guide to human-centered design book cover

The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design - Design Kit

by IDEO

A helpful tool for work or study projects with a "take action" approach. Easy to share with fellow team members and extending learners, it helps make a big difference in quickly identifying next, tangible steps.

Get the book

101 design methods book cover

101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization

by Vijay Kumar

This is an excellent book if you want to consider various aspects on "doing" design, while choosing the features you think will apply to your case. It's a great read on explaining the purpose of methods.

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universal methods of design book cover

Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions

by Bella Martin & Bruce M. Hanington

If you're looking for a book centered on research tactics, this is a great read. Having a diversity of ideas, they are presented concisely and are easily scannable.

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50 brainstorming methods book cover

50 Brainstorming Methods: For Team and Individual Ideation

by Robert Curedale

Curedale offers extensive, clear, and concise methods for enabling creative action. This book includes methods with a variety of approaches to brainstorming.

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innovating for people book cover

Innovating for People Handbook of Human-Centered Design Methods

by LUMA Institute

This book is easily comprehensible with a well-organized collection of design methods and practical descriptions. Great for those familiar with human-centered design, as well as those who are relatively new to the field. A handy compact companion resource.

Get the book

Books create another avenue of learning

While these specific books may or may not help every designer find the best method, they can still expand a designer's knowledge. This knowledge helps grow our method toolbox and use a variety of methods so that we design the best user experience. And as always, picking a method is dependent on what you are trying to learn more about. But the methods you learn through these books can help expand how you arrive at the design solution. And remember, your Reading teachers appreciate it.

Online resources for learning design methodologies

Below are some additional UX Research Methods that are not solely books themselves, but a few links to some further beneficial articles. So no worry if you might not have the time to order some of these books, you can also find helpful methods below.

photo of designer drawing ux wireframes on paper
Original photo by Kelly Sikkema

A Comprehensive List of UX design Methods & Deliverables

This article features a wide variety of methods such as service blueprints and value propositions. It also contains various related links for each method. This can be great to see how others are approaching and conducting these methods so you can tailor each to fit better to your current project.

Read This Article

illustration of hands interacting with app ux cards
Illustration by Wren Sauer

Most Common UX Design Methods and Techniques

Further expanding on the article above, this link also gives a range of methods from cultural probes to heuristic evaluation. They provide great visual examples for each and also contain related links where you can find some helpful examples of each method’s best practices.

Read This Article

promo graphic with abstract shape by Konrad

UX Research Methods and Techniques

This article kicks off with a matrix overview of various UX research methods to help users understand what methods fit more into qualitative vs quantitative as well as situational vs solution focus. For anyone who has recently started to dive into UX research methods, this can help see an overview of what to use and when while unboxing the methods by groups.

Read This Article

Note:
Updated with online resources in May 2022

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