Welcome to yet another “best UX books’’ list, but with a twist. This compilation revisits the best books from one decade, the 1980s. If you were there, you can take a stroll down memory lane — or get apoplectic if your fav book was overlooked. If you joined the UX field later, you can get a taste of the latest-greatest ideas from that era, and see which ones are still around.

Of course, the term UX had not yet been coined, and the field was more commonly known as human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centered design (UCD), which are terms featured in many of the classic books we’ll cover.

Timeless classics

Classics in this category are still being read today (with only minor updates). So, these titles are likely familiar to the latest generation of UX designers.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Edward Tufte,1983) covers what is known today as “data viz”. While the author was not specifically addressing software UX, this book had a deep impact on people working in the field at the time. This book fused functional communication principles with the pursuit of aesthetic goals. As one reviewer put it, this book is both a masterpiece about design and is itself a masterpiece of design.

[For more info: HCI Bib | Book/Author site | Recent review article (Jeff Hale, 2018)]

What can cognitive psychology tell us about designing a door knob or light switch that is easy to use? As it turns out, quite a bit. The Psychology of Everyday Things (Donald Norman, 1988) was a best seller that introduced usability and user-centered design to the general public. You might recognize the author’s name; he appears elsewhere in this list, and remains a thought leader today. If the title seems a bit off, it’s because the book was later re-published with its more familiar title, The Design of Everyday Things. This book is still reaching new audiences — even my teenage son has heard of this book, albeit from watching a YouTube video.

[For more info: HCI Bib | Wikipedia | Author discussing the revised edition]

Seminal classics

Classics in this category were first-of-a-kinds that evolved through several editions up to the present day. And they provided a template for later authors.

A milestone in any new field is the appearance of the first widely used textbook. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (Ben Shneiderman, 1987) is still going strong — the 6th edition was released in 2016. In the original edition, many chapters addressed the technology of the time, including menu selection, system messages, and printed manuals. Other topics have persisted to the current edition, including direct manipulation and devices.

[For more info: HCI Bib | Latest edition book site ]

As the first OS style guide, Human Interface Guidelines: The Apple Desktop Interface (Apple Computer, 1987) provided the template for the many style guides that followed, which evolved into today’s design systems. Apple has been updating this book for over 30 years, and traces of the original edition are still apparent. As befits a style guide, the writing is clear and accessible to the general developer audience, and the book is attractively produced.

[For more info: HCI Bib | Recent review article (Bryant Hodson, 2016) | Latest edition ]

More of what was big in the ‘80s

Classics in this category had a major impact in their day and illustrate three different ways the field’s pioneers sought to document the rapidly evolving state of the art.

If you were a UX expert in academia or industry in the 1980s, you joined working groups, travelled to symposia, and generally had a good time comparing notes with your peers. Afterwards, you would publish a book to let everyone else know what you talked about. These efforts often tried to cover the entire field, unlike today’s more specialized efforts. One notable result is User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction (Edited by D. Norman and D. Draper, 1986). This proceedings includes 22 chapters, some with amusing titles like There’s More to Interaction Than Meets the Eye: Some Issues in Manual Input and Answers First, Then Questions. The editors point out that this book is not a how-to guide, but rather speculative and introspective essays intended to formulate new ways of thinking about the field.

[For more info: HCI Bib | Semantic Scholar entry ]

The 1980s witnessed some heroic efforts to capture everything worth knowing about the field. Apparently, that was a lot. Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Edited by R. Baecker and W. Buxton, 1987)weighs in at 714 pages, and for readers wanting even more, it includes a guide to further reading. Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (Edited by M. Helander, 1988) is also no lightweight,with 52 chapters and over 1100 pages. These books show how deep and broad the field was at that early stage. Both publications have since been updated and are even longer.

[For more info on Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: HCI Bib | Semantic Scholar | Publisher entry to later edition ]

[For more info on of Human-Computer Interaction: HCI Bib | Google Books | Semantic Scholar entry for the second edition (1997) ]

The third, and final, type of book we’ll look at painstakingly codifies prescriptive guidance on the myriad design details. Guidelines were such a common approach to writing about design that there was even a conference paper entitled Guidelines for Designing Design Guidelines. These books were a response to the fact that many UIs were being designed by developers — people with sometimes neither the training nor inclination to deliver a great user experience. So, guidance had to be spelled out in excruciating detail.

Handbook of Screen Format Design (W.O. Galitz, 1985)approached the topic by covering different types of screens in turn, including data entry, inquiry, and menu screens. This author went on to write several more books in the subsequent decade including the amusingly named It’s Time to Clean Your Windows: Designing GUIs That Work. Another stand-out from the 1980s, Human-Computer Interface Design Guidelines (M. Brown, 1988), covered similar ground along with some bonus content: guidance on implementation and a checklist for auditing designs for compliance with the guidelines.

[For more info on Handbook of Screen Format Design: HCI Bib ]

[For more info on Human-Computer Interface Design Guidelines: HCI Bib | Google Books ]

In the 1980s, people were busy writing and reading books on UX. However, today, books compete for attention in a crowded media marketplace. In fact, I have it on good authority (my teenage son), that nobody under 30 reads books anymore. Be that as it may, if you ever feel like reading a good UX book, consider one of these classics from the 1980s. Or if you want to dig deeper, see the appendix, which lists even more classics from the 1980s.

Appendix: More classic UX books from the 1980s

• 1980 | Software Psychology: Human Factors in Computer and Information Systems | Shneiderman
• 1983 | Online Help: Design and Evaluation | Duffy, Thomas, Palmer, Mehlenbacher
• 1983 | The psychology of human-computer interaction | Card, Moran, Newell
• 1983 | The Psychology of Computer Use | Green, Payne, van der Veer (Eds)
• 1983 | Human Error in Computer Systems | Bailey
• 1984 | Human Factors in Computer Systems | Thomas, Schneider (Eds)
• 1985 | Computer Usability Testing and Evaluation | Spencer
• 1985 | Advances in Human-Computer Interaction | Hartson (Ed)
• 1986 | Understanding Computers and Cognition | Winograd, Flores
• 1987 | Interfacing Thought: Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction | Carroll (Ed)
• 1987 | Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Computer Communication | Suchman
• 1988 | Designing User Interfaces for Software | Dumas
• 1989 | Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings | Nielsen (Ed)
• 1989 | Task Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction | Diaper

Thanks

For their encouragement and help in this quixotic venture, thanks to: Chauncey Wilson, Laura Teich, Ian McInerney, Ilona Posner, and all the volunteers who compiled HCI Bibliography: Human-Computer Interaction Resources, which is better known HCI Bib.