The Biggest and Most Authoritative Library of Open-Source UX Design Resources
Open-Source, Open-Access Literature
The democratization of design knowledge is at the very heart of our mission. That’s why—over 21 years after we started—we will never stop bringing leading designers, bestselling authors, and Ivy League professors together to create open-source, free-to-access textbooks on UX design. This is the world’s most comprehensive compendium of design knowledge, made available to everyone around the world.
The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
Free textbooks written by more than 100 leading designers, bestselling authors, and Ivy League professors. We have assembled our textbooks in a gigantic encyclopedia, whose 4,000+ pages cover the design of interactive products and services such as websites, household objects, smartphones, computer software, aircraft cockpits, and what have you. Name an item of design interest, and you'll probably find it discussed inside.
Table of Contents
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1Interaction Design - brief introby Jonas Löwgren
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2Human Computer Interaction - brief introby John M. Carroll
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3User Experience and Experience Designby Marc Hassenzahl
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4Social Computingby Thomas Erickson
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5Visual Representationby Alan Blackwell
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6Industrial Designby Kees Overbeeke and Caroline Hummels
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7Bifocal Displayby Robert Spence and Mark Apperley
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8Contextual Designby Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh R. Beyer
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9Mobile Computingby Jesper Kjeldskov
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10End-User Developmentby Margaret M. Burnett and Christopher Scaffidi
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11Philosophy of Interactionby Dag Svanaes
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12Affective Computingby Kristina Höök
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13Requirements Engineeringby Alistair G. Sutcliffe
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14Context-Aware Computingby Albrecht Schmidt
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15Usability Evaluationby Gilbert Cockton
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16Activity Theoryby Victor Kaptelinin
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17Disruptive Innovationby Clayton M. Christensen
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18Open User Innovationby Eric von Hippel
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19Visual Aestheticsby Noam Tractinsky
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20Tactile Interactionby Ben Challis
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21Somaestheticsby Richard Shusterman
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22Card Sortingby William Hudson
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23Wearable Computingby Steve Mann
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24Socio-Technical System Designby Brian Whitworth and Adnan Ahmad
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25Semioticsby Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza
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26Aesthetic Computingby Paul A. Fishwick
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27Computer Supported Cooperative Workby Jonathan Grudin and Steven Poltrock
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28Phenomenologyby Shaun Gallagher
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29Formal Methodsby Alan Dix
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30Personasby Lene Nielsen
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31Ethnographyby Dave Randall and Mark Rouncefield
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323D User Interfacesby Doug A. Bowman
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33Action Researchby Ned Kock
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34Experimental Methods in Human-Computer Interactionby Paul Cairns
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35Data Visualization for Human Perceptionby Stephen Few
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38Human-Robot Interactionby Kerstin Dautenhahn
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39User Interface Design Adaptationby Fabio Paterno
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40Emotion and website designby Dianne Cyr
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41Human-Data Interactionby Richard Mortier, Hamed Haddadi, Tristan Henderson, Derek McAuley, Jon Crowcroft and Andy Crabtree
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42Design for Allby Constantine Stephanidis
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43Research through Designby Pieter Jan Stappers and Elisa Giaccardi
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44Affordancesby Victor Kaptelinin
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52Semi-structured qualitative studiesby Ann Blandford
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53Service Designby John Zimmerman and Jodi Forlizzi
Research Bibliography
Browse the world’s largest Wiki Bibliography on human-centered technology, comprising 138,000 authors in more than 127,000 publications.
Contributing Authors
We are honored to have these highly regarded professors and experts as contributing authors of our educational materials:
Don Norman is widely regarded as the creator of the term “UX design.” An expert in design, usability, and cognitive science, Norman strongly advocated for user-centered design, which now underpins almost all design fields. His ideas on aesthetics, affordances, and usability profoundly impact the way we design everything, from doors to software applications.
In 1993, he joined Apple as a User Experience Architect—the first-ever use of the phrase “user experience” in a job title. Norman’s books, The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design, are regarded as essential readings for any design student. He is currently director of The Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego, and is also co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group.
Don Norman is the author of numerous books including "Emotional Design," and more recently, "Living with Complexity." He is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group, a professor at KAIST (in Korea), an IDEO fellow, and a design theorist, studying the fundamentals of modern design.
Donald A. Norman has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from MIT and a Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds an honorary degree from the University of Padua, Italy. He has been a professor of Computer Science (at Northwestern University), Psychology, and Cognitive Science (at the University of California, San Diego).
Recognized as a leader in the design community, Karen has pioneered transformative ideas and design approaches throughout her career. Karen is the inventor of Contextual Inquiry-the industry standard for gathering field data to understand how technology impacts the way people work. Contextual Inquiry and the design processes based on it provide a revolutionary approach for designing new products and systems based on a deep understanding of the context of use. Contextual Inquiry forms the base of Contextual Design, InContext's full customer-centered design process.
Karen co-founded InContext Enterprises in 1992 to use Contextual Design techniques to coach product teams and deliver customer-centered designs to businesses across multiple industries. The books, Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, and Rapid Contextual Design, are used by companies and universities all over the world. Karen is a member of the CHI Academy (awarded to significant contributors in the Computer-Human Interaction Association) and received the first Life Time Award for Practice at CHI2010 for her contributions to the field. Karen's extensive experience with teams and all types of work and life practice underlies the innovation and reliable quality consistently delivered by InContext's teams.
Karen also has more than 20 years of teaching experience, professionally and in university settings. She holds a doctorate in applied psychology from the University of Toronto.
Lene Nielsen is an Associate Professor at ITU, Department of Business IT, and Head of the TIME (Technology, Innovation, Management, and Entrepreneurship) research group.
Her research focuses on personas, and she was the first in the world to write a Ph.D. about personas. Her research topics include the many aspects of the development and use of personas, such as:
Global personas
Personas based on quantitative data
Persona descriptions as communication to specific and different audiences
The relationship between persona description and data
The use of personas in agile development
Personas in service design.
Lene Nielsen har published two books on personas and more than 80 papers
Lene Nielsen teaches service design and different aspects of innovation.
Frank Spillers is a web and software usability expert, a distinguished speaker, author, and internationally respected Senior Usability practitioner. He is an expert in improving the design and usability of large-scale websites, web applications, desktop, and mobile apps. He is the founder of the usability consultancy firm Experience Dynamics. With an MSc in Cognitive Science and eleven years of experience in UX design, Spillers has worked with clients such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Microsoft. He is an experienced practitioner of user-centered and emotional design and has developed a new research technique called “cognitive archeology,” which aids experts when researching emotional product design.
Before founding Experience Dynamics in 2001, Frank managed usability consulting for WebCriteria (now Coremetrics) and worked with students of Dr. Donald Norman (the grandfather of User-Centered Design) at Intuitive Design, a San Diego-based User-Centered Design consultancy. His current clients include Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Logitech, GE, Nike, Hewlett-Packard, KeyBank, Four Seasons, Chase, Target.com, and Whitepages.com. He has trained thousands of teams and individuals in usability and User-Centered Design techniques in private as well as public settings.
Frank received his Master's in Cognitive Science (MS) from Birmingham University, the UK in the user experience of collaborative (social) virtual (3D) environments.
Kristina Hook is a professor in Interaction Design at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden. She started and now works in the Mobile Life center. She also upholds a part-time position at SICS (Swedish Institute of Computer Science).
Her research interests include affective interaction, somaesthetic design, the internet of things, and anything that makes life with technology more meaningful, enjoyable, creative, and aesthetically appealing.
Alan Dix is a computing professor at the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Centre of the University of Birmingham, UK. He is a co-author of the global, bestselling university-level textbook Human-Computer Interaction. Dix is passionate about designing things that connect humans and computers—everything from machines to software. He has co-authored and published hundreds of papers on HCI, covering topics ranging from information visualization and usability to designing for appropriation.
Alan Dix has taught and researched human-computer interaction (HCI) for nearly 30 years. His interests in the area range from the application of formal techniques in interface design to methods for enhancing innovation and creativity. He began as a mathematician at Cambridge University and moved into computing and HCI whilst doing his Ph.D. at the University of York. His background also includes work on farm crop sprayers and remote-controlled submarines. He was one of the founder-director of two Internet dot.com companies.
We only invite contributions from globally recognized authorities within their respective design fields.
View more of our contributing authorsTop User Experience (UX) topics
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User Experience (UX) Design 184 articles
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Design Thinking 57 articles
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User Research 54 articles
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User Interface (UI) Design 53 articles
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Usability 50 articles
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Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) 49 articles
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Mobile User Experience (UX) Design 43 articles