Currently Reading: Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior.
by Indi Young

This is a book from a series from Rosenfeld Media. The series includes Design is the Problem:The Future of Design must be Sustainable, Prototyping: A Practitioner’s Guide and Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks.

What I’m enjoying most about this book is the practical advice for integrating UCD into less formal design processes. I’m only part way through, and there’s a lot of “real” information.

The Cheese Monkeys & The Learners
by Chip Kidd

Fun reading – especially for anyone who has ever been to art school or worked in advertising. Not often you encounter a passage on time sheets, billable and non-billable hours, or a pitch in a novel…

My Last Sigh (The Autobiography of Luis Bunuel).
Translated by Abigail Israel

I’m actually re-reading this excellent book, having read it for the first time long ago. It’s a testament to my good manners that I gave the book back to the friend I’d borrowed it from – I’d enjoyed reading it so much that I knew I regret giving it up.

More about Bunuel at Wikipedia

Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell

This book has been in the queue for a for few years now – there’s nothing to make be avoid reading a book than having it recommended it to me. Perverse of me, I know. If you’re unaware of the book’s structure, the first section’s content and pace might weaken your resolve. Well worth your perseverance.

Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services
Kim Goodwin

This 740 page book is phenomenal! An excellent reference with lots of sensible advice and insight.

Later: The Research section of this book alone is phenomenal! And no where is the process of conducting interviews, modeling data and developing personas outlined in such detail. Proof – if proof were needed – that personas are based on research, not pulled from thin air.

About Face 3 Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin

Wartime Writings: 1943-1949 by Marguerite Duras

Notebooks containing early drafts and sketches of works like The Lover and The War. Probably not of much interest for the casual Duras reader, but it’s certainly of interest if you happen to have ready everything else by Duras.

How do you design? A Compendium of Models by Hugh Dubberly

An excellent 150 page free download.

Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World: Adaptive Path on Design by Peter Merholz, Todd Wilkens, Brandon Schauer, and David Verba

Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski