101 UX Principles: A Definitive Design Guide

The most important things you need to know about creating successful user experiences

We want our UX to be brilliant. We want to create stunning user experiences. We want our UX to drive the success of our business with useful and usable software products. This book draws on the wisdom and training of Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman to help you get your UX right – in 101 ways!

101 UX Principles shows you the 101 most important things you need to know about usability and design. A practical reference for UX professionals, and a shortcut to greatness for anyone who needs a clear and wise selection of principles to guide their UX success. Learn the key principles that drive brilliant UX design.

Enjoy 101 Principles including ‘Good UX has a Beginning, a Middle, and an End’, ‘Make Your Links Look Like Links’, ‘Don’t Use Obsolete Icons’, ‘Decide Whether an Interaction Should Be Obvious, Easy, or Possible’, ‘Test with Real Users’, ‘Making the most of fonts’, ‘Good UX for search results’, and ‘Show your user – don’t tell your user!’

“Good to read from beginning to end, and a nice dip-in-and-out text, the chapter titles reminded me of principles I don’t even think about explicitly when I likely should. The book inspired me to start more explicitly articulating some of the principles I just take for granted.”

– Elizabeth Churchill, Director of User Experience at Google

“This is a great practical read. It is convenient to use as a reference when solving real UX problems. I would definitely recommend it as an introduction to UX, but also as a good reminder of best practices for more experienced designers.”

– Anne-Marie L�ger, Designer at Shopify

“A great Mood Booster and Pep Talk. Like a good pep talk from a sports coach before a game, Will reminds us of the common pitfalls we all come across.”

– Kate Pincott Product Designer at Facebook

Some more of the 101 UX Principles featured in this book:

• Work with user expectations not against them
• How to build upon established metaphors
• How to arrange navigation elements
• How to introduce new ideas to your user
• Matching pagination and content structure
• When invention is not good for UX
• Striving for simplicity
• Reducing user tasks
• What to make clickable
• Making the most of fonts
• Making your links look like links
• Picking the right control for the job
• Data input and what users care about
• How to handle destructive user actions
• When color should not convey information
• Tappable areas and the size of fingers
• Getting payment details the right way
• Use the standard e-commerce pattern
• If you really must use a flat design
• When to use progress bars or spinners
• Dropdowns the right and wrong way
• Handling just-off-screen content
• How to do Hamburger menus right
• When to hide Advanced Settings
• Good UX for Notifications