Literature

I’m often asked about the books to read about complex systems UX. While there is no single book on this topic, here is my list of recommended literature that I consider very useful. Some of the books may look pretty old, but I think that this just means that they have stood the test of time, and while the style of the UIs can be not very “fresh”, they still uncover important concepts that are valid — just adopt it to your current task and context.

For beginners

• Jef Raskin. The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2000
  Very good, ever-actual focus on microinteractions design and thinking out of the engineering and “status quo” box
• Alan Cooper. About Face – The Essentials of Interaction Design. John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2014
• Don Norman. The Design of Everyday Things
• Jesse James Garrett. The Elements of User Experience
• Jenifer Tidwell. Designing Interfaces

Advanced topics

• Bill Hollifield, Dana Oliver, Ian Nimmo, Eddie Habibi. The High Performance HMI Handbook. PAS, 2008
• Neville A. Stanton. Human Factors in Alarm Design, CRC Press, 1994

Human factors and ergonomics

• Mica R.Endsley, Debra G. Jones. Designing for Situation Awareness, 2nd edition. CRC Press, 2012
  Academic, but fundamental, probably there is still nothing better at this moment.
• James Reason. Human Error. Cambridge University Press, 1990
  Everything you want to know about humans making errors. Quite academic, but it also implies that there is probably nothing more fundamental.
• Neville Stanton et al. Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods, CRC Press, 2004
• D Norman, P. Lindsay. Human Information Processing. An Introduction to Psychology
• Dik Gregory, Paul Shanahan. Being Human in safety-critical organisations. TSO, 2017

Specific industries

Maritime industry

• Antonio Di Lieto. Bridge Resource Management. Hydeas Pty, 2015
  Very comprehensive overview of Costa Concordia disaster in terms of human factors and safety culture.

Aviation

• Wise, Hopkin, Garland. Handbook of Aviation Human Factors, 2nd edition. CRC Press, 2010
  Systematic overview of human factors in aviation — from readability of gauges to the role of aesthetics.
• Pamela S. Tsang, Michael A. Vidulich. Principles and Practice of Aviation Psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003
• David Beaty. The Naked Pilot. The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents. Airlife, 1995
  Non-fiction, pretty simple book, that highlights role of human factors in aviation

Information visualization

• Edward Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition. Graphics Pr, 1997
• Jacques Bertin. Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps
• Eduard Imhof. Cartographic Relief Presentation

Other books

• Victor Papanek. Design for the real world. Pantheon Books, 1971
  Very good focus on the real design challenges and tasks. Probably, this book affected my current specialization more than anything else
• Robert Sheckley. Ask A Foolish Question
  In my opinion, this short story is the best introduction to proper user and product research.
• Leslie Groves. Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project
  One of the most interesting (and terrible) books about project management in conditions of uncertainty and limited time.
• Vilém Flusser. Vom Stand der Dinge. Eine kleine Philosophie des Design
• Stanisław Lem. Summa Technologiae
• R. Buckminster Fuller. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth