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100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People -
by Susan Weinschenk -
New Riders (2011).
pdf
Publication Date: April 24, 2011
ISBN-10: 0321767535
ISBN-13: 978-0321767530

We design to elicit responses from people. We want them to buy something, read more, or take action of some kind. Designing without understanding what makes people act the way they do is like exploring a new city without a map: results will be haphazard, confusing, and inefficient. This book combines real science and research with practical examples to deliver a guide every designer needs. With it you’ll be able to design more intuitive and engaging work for print, websites, applications, and products that matches the way people think, work, and play.

Learn to increase the effectiveness, conversion rates, and usability of your own design projects by finding the answers to questions such as:
What grabs and holds attention on a page or screen?
What makes memories stick?
What is more important, peripheral or central vision?
How can you predict the types of errors that people will make?
What is the limit to someone’s social circle?
How do you motivate people to continue on to (the next step?
What line length for text is best?
Are some fonts better than others?
These are just a few of the questions that the book answers in its deep-dive exploration of what makes peopl

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Design by Nature - Maggie Macnab - New Riders (2011)

In Design by Nature: Using Universal Forms and Principles in Design, author Maggie Macnab takes you on an intimate and eclectic journey examining the unending versatility of nature, showing how to uncover nature’s ingenuity and use it to create beautiful and compelling designed communications.

Written for designers and creative thinkers of all types, this book will guide you through a series of unexpected a-ha! moments that describe relationships among nature, art, science, technology, and design. Through explanation and example, you will learn about natural processes, consisting of everyday patterns and shapes that are often taken for granted, but that can be used effectively in visual messaging. Explore the principles all human beings intuitively use to understand the world and learn to incorporate nature’s patterns and shapes into your work for more meaningful design.

By recognizing and appreciating a broad range of relationships, you can create more aesthetic and effective design, building communications that encompass the universal experience of being part of nature, and that are relevant to a worldwide audience.
Teaches how to understand and integrate the essential processes of nature’s patterns and shapes in design
Includes key concepts, learning objectives, definitions, and exercises to help you put what you learn into practice
Features a foreword by Debbie Millman and reviews and discussions of practice and process by some of the world’s leading designers, including Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, and Ellen Lupton
Includes profiles of street artist Banksy, creative director and author Kenya Hara, and typographical designer Erik Spiekermann

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Designing for Emotion - Spool - A Book Apart (2011).pdf

by AARRON WALTER

Make your users fall in love with your site via the precepts packed into this brief, charming book by MailChimp user experience design lead Aarron Walter. From classic psychology to case studies, highbrow concepts to common sense, Designing for Emotion demonstrates accessible strategies and memorable methods to help you make a human connection through design.

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Designing with the Mind in Mind Simple - Johnson - Kaufmann (2010).pdf

Publication Date: June 3, 2010 | ISBN-10: 012375030X | ISBN-13: 978-0123750303 | Edition: 1
Early user interface (UI) practitioners were trained in cognitive psychology, from which UI design rules were based. But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In Designing with the Mind in Mind, Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling GUI Bloopers, provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow.

* The first practical, all-in-one source for practitioners on user interface design rules and why, when and how to apply them.
* Provides just enough background into the reasoning behind interface design rules that practitioners can make informed decisions in every project.
* Gives practitioners the insight they need to make educated design decisions when confronted with tradeoffs, including competing design rules, time constrictions, or limited resources.

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Disatinca­tive De­sign A Practi­cal Guide to a Useful, Beautiful Web - Alexander Dawson - Wi­ley (2011).epub

Publication Date: August 23, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1119992982 | ISBN-13: 978-1119992981 | Edition: 1
Learn to produce a web site that stands out from the crowd
One of the web designer's greatest challenges is to create a site distinctive enough to get noticed among the millions of sites already on the web. This book examines the bond between code, content and visuals to guide you through the factors that increase your design's visibility, usability and beauty. Using this practical advice, even web designers who lack strong artistic skills can develop super sites that strengthen the message and stand out from the crowd.

Most books focus primarily on graphic design principles; this one shows you how to maximize and prioritize every design decision to help your site achieve its primary purpose: showcasing your content and services
Explores the bond between code, content and visuals to guide you through the factors that increase your design's visibility, usability and beauty
Enables even artistically challenged web designers to create elegant, functional layouts that attract visitors and are user-friendly
Every web designer can benefit from this practical advice on creating an informative, attractive, easy-to-use site that gets noticed.

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Modern Web Design and Development - Multiple - Smashing (2011).pdf

We're seeing better interaction design and more aesthetically pleasing designs. And we're seeing more personal, engaging and memorable sites, too. But what exactly is making the difference? What new directions is Web design heading in today? What new techniques, concepts and ideas are becoming important?
This eBook contains 16 articles that cover current as well as upcoming Web design trends. It also includes facts on responsive Web design, improving Web security, useful coding tips and practices for HTML5 and CSS3, and much more! This eBook on ‘Modern Web Design and Development’ touches on what Web designers should be ready for to keep abreast of new challenges and opportunities.
These articles have been published on Smashing Magazine in 2010 and 2011 and are known to be the best on professional Web design and development. They have been carefully edited and prepared for this eBook.
Founded in September 2006, Smashing Magazine delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers. Smashing Magazine is a well-respected international online publication for professional Web designers and developers. Our main goal is to support the Web design community with useful and valuable articles and resources, written and created by experienced designers and developers.

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Ordering Disorder Grid Principles for Web Design - Vinh - New Riders (2011).pdf
Publication Date: December 3, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0321703537 | ISBN-13: 978-0321703538 | Edition: 1
The grid has long been an invaluable tool for creating order out of chaos for designers of all kinds—from city planners to architects to typesetters and graphic artists. In recent years, web designers, too, have come to discover the remarkable power that grid-based design can afford in creating intuitive, immersive, and beautiful user experiences.

Ordering Disorder delivers a definitive take on grids and the Web. It provides both the big ideas and the brass-tacks techniques of grid-based design. Readers are sure to come away with a keen understanding of the power of grids, as well as the design tools needed to implement them for the World Wide Web.

Khoi Vinh is internationally recognized for bringing the tried-and-true principles of the typographic grid to the World Wide Web. He is the former Design Director for NYTimes.com, where he consolidated his reputation for superior user experience design. He writes and lectures widely on design, technology, and culture, and has published the popular blog Subtraction.com for over a decade.

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Professional Web Design - Multiple - Smashing (2010).pdf
This e-book contains a selection of the best articles about professional Web design that have been published on Smashing Magazine in 2009 and 2010. The articles have been carefully edited and prepared for the PDF version; some screenshots and links were removed to make the book easier to read and print out.

This book presents guidelines for professional Web development, including communicating with clients, creating a road map to a successful portfolio, rules for professional networking and tips on designing user interfaces for business Web applications. The book shares expert advice, and it also helps you learn how to respond effectively to design criticism, use storytelling for a better user experience and apply color theory to your professional designs.

Table of Contents
On 242 pages you will read:
Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites (Paul Boag)
Portfolio Design Study: Design Patterns and Current Practices (Vitaly Friedman)
Creating A Successful Online Portfolio (Sean Hodge)
Better User Experience With Storytelling (Francisco Inchauste)
Designing User Interfaces For Business Web Applications (Janko Jovanovic)
Progressive Enhancement And Standards Do Not Limit Web Design (new article by Christian Heilmann)
Color Theory for Professional Designers (Cameron Chapman)
Is John The Client Dense or Are You Failing Him? (Paul Boag)
How To Identify and Deal With Different Types Of Clients (Robert Bowen)
How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism (Andrew Follett)
Web Designer’s Guide to Professional Networking (new article by Steven Snell)
Group Interview: Expert Advice For Students and Young Web Designers (Steven Snell)

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The Principles of Beautiful Web Design - Beaird - Site Point (2010) .pdf

Publication Date: December 5, 2010 | ISBN-10: 098057689X | ISBN-13: 978-0980576894 | Edition: Second Edition
This second edition of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is the ideal book for people who can build websites, but are seeking the skills and knowledge to visually enhance their sites.

This book will teach you how to:
Understand the process of what makes "good design," from discovery through to implementation
Use color effectively, develop color schemes, and create a palette
Create pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, and symmetry
Employ textures: lines, points, shapes, volumes, and depth
Apply typography to make ordinary designs look great
Choose, edit, and position effective imagery
And lots more...

This revised, easy-to-follow guide is illustrated with beautiful, full-color examples, and leads readers through the process of creating great designs from start to finish.

It also features:
Updated information about grid-based design
How to design for mobile resolutions
Information about the future of web fonts including @font-face
Common user-interface patterns and resources

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Universal Principles of Design (2010).pdf
Publication Date: January 1, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1592535879 | ISBN-13: 978-1592535873 | Edition: Second Edition, Revised and Updated
Whether a marketing campaign or a museum exhibit, a video game or a complex control system, the design we see is the culmination of many concepts and practices brought together from a variety of disciplines. Because no one can be an expert on everything, designers have always had to scramble to find the information and know-how required to make a design work—until now.

Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated is a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary encyclopedia of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, it pairs clear explanations of every design concept with visual examples of the concepts applied in practice. From the "80/20” rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Occam's razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, every major design concept is defined and illustrated for readers to expand their knowledge.

This landmark reference will become the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their design expertise.

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Web Form Design Filling in the Blanks - Wroblewski - Rosenfeld (2008 ).pdf

Publication Date: May 2, 2008
Forms make or break the most crucial online interactions: checkout, registration, and any task requiring information entry. In Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski draws on original research, his considerable experience at Yahoo! and eBay, and the perspectives of many of the field's leading designers to show you everything you need to know about designing effective and engaging web forms.
Testimonials

"Luke Wroblewski has done the entire world a great favor by writing this book. Online forms are ubiquitous and ubiquitously annoying but they don't have to be. Wroblewski shows Web designers how to present forms that gather necessary information without unnecessarily badgering and annoying visitors.
Alan Cooper, Chairman, Cooper; author, The Inmates are Running the Asylum

"If I could only send a copy of Web Form Design Best Practices to the designer of every web form that's frustrated me, I'd go bankrupt from the shipping charges alone. Please. Stop the pain. Read this book now."
Eric Meyer (meyerweb.com), author of CSS: The Definitive Guide

"Luke's book is by far the most practical, comprehensive, data-driven guide for solving form design challenges that plague every interface designer. It is an essential reference that will become a must-read for many years."
Irene Au, Director of User Experience, Google

"Form design has historically been an afterthought, a partial chapter in past web design primers. Thankfully, we now have Luke's indispensable best practices in print. This book will now sit on my desk whenever I'm designing an application."
Dan Cederholm, Principal, SimpleBits; author of Bulletproof Web Design

"Through really clear examples and succinct best practices, Luke brings joy to designing forms. I love this book and will be adding it to my list of "must haves."
Bill Scott, Director UI Engineering, Netflix; former Yahoo! Ajax Evangelist

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