Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Vincent Baas

Hello world: sharing my top reads in my first ever design blog

Call it acting on a New Year’s resolution, call it a necessity, or call it fate. Whatever it is, it’s there: my first blog post. I’ve decided to take up writing with the mutual goal of improving my own thinking and amusing my readers (yes, that’s you there!) with my views on design. And faithful to the ‘start small and improve’ mantra, the first topic is an easy one: books. Over the years I’ve been reading and collecting more and more design-related books, some of which I would like to share with you.

My six favorite design books I want to share with you

Design of Everyday Things

This is probably the first design book I ever bought next to the ones specified by my curriculum. Don Norman is an all-time hero who has managed to fill this book with chapters on door knobs, stove buttons, and microwave controls. By exposing flaws in the design of these everyday objects around us, he shows the true value of good design and the theories behind it. Good design is invisible, and that’s what the examples in this book show: you’ll probably only notice them when things don’t work like you expect them to. This book is a great read if you’ve never understood the controls on your TV remote or keep pushing a door instead of pulling it, and you want to understand why.

This book is a great read if you’ve never understood the controls on your TV remote or keep pushing a door instead of pulling it, and you want to understand why.

Thinking, Fast & Slow

As my most recent read, Daniel Kahneman’s book was a real eye-opener for me about the inner workings of the human mind. It’s not really an easy read, as it really puts your mind to work with exercises and tests that make you understand the mind better. Step-by-step the book (together with Nudge by Thaler & Sunstein) showed me a clear picture of how our decision making works (in good and bad ways), and how the two systems in our brain interact. This book is a must read for designers who want to understand more on the impact (and power) of their designs on the outcome of decision-making.

Must read for designers who want to understand more on the impact (and power) of their designs on the outcome of decision-making.

Change by Design

Books written by the superstars at IDEO are always a treat, and this one by Tim Brown is no different. For designers, this book will maybe tell you that the thing you’ve been doing all along is named design thinking. But it might be even more interesting for non-designers who want to know more about the great potential design has beyond just the looks of things. Design according to Brown is a continuous balancing act (but more on that in a later blog) between desirability, feasibility, and viability that always starts with deep empathy for the user.

Books written by the superstars at IDEO are always a treat, and this one by Tim Brown is no different.

Gamestorming

When I facilitate workshops at KLM people often ask me how I come up with all the methods and exercises I use. Well, I owe that partially to the course Creative Facilitation at the Delft University of Technology, but honestly: I must also credit this great book by Dave Gray. Gamestorming is a great reference work for creative exercises, but also a starting point for imagining new ones. Each description is easy to read, and includes a step-by-step instruction of how to approach it. My personal favorite so far: the 100 dollar test, where participants can only spend 100 (fictional) dollars on features of a solution. This exercise helps in sparking a discussion on priorities and what’s really important. Gamestorming is not only interesting when creating a design workshop, but also for people who want to give their regular meetings a bit more purpose and structure. So here’s to saying no to boring meetings!

Gamestorming is a great reference work for creative exercises, but also a starting point for imagining new ones.

Elon Musk

What does the biography of a madman driving people crazy with stories about Mars do in a serious list of design books? Well, together with the Steve Jobs’ biography, this book by Ashlee Vance shows what enormous drive, passion and vision can do to the world and the people in it. Combine this with the occasional bold gamble, huge failures, and getting back up again, and you’ll get an inspiring book that leads by example.

This book shows what enormous drive, passion and vision can do to the world and the people in it.

Sprint

Part of what works so well in our team of service designers at KLM is the fact that we like doing design sprints so much. We loved it so much we did 14 design sprints in 9 months. Along the way we learned many things, but that is maybe a topic for a different blog post. Sprint has managed to come up with a method that will turn even the most skeptical manager into a design evangelist by the end of the week. The book is very down to earth and very practical, including checklists and plans for each day of a design sprint. This book is worth checking out if you’re into quickly validating your high-stakes ideas in an intense, week-long pressure cooker.

This book is worth checking out if you’re into quickly validating your high-stakes ideas in an intense, week-long pressure cooker.

This Is Service Design Thinking

Where Change by Design moved design beyond just building great solutions to making things that actually have an impact on peoples’ lives, This Is Service Design Thinking moves design even further. By outlining the principles behind service design this book opened my eyes and helped me advance my thinking from single touchpoint to holistic experiences. Combined with a practical list of tool and case studies this book is a great bible for everyone who is interested in service design. Its successor (This Is Service Design Doing) is already on my shopping list, and as far as aestethics go: did I already mention I love the neon print in this book?

Did I already mention I love the neon print in this book?

I hope these six books give you a glimpse inside my designerly brain, and what each book might have contributed to it. What probably connects them all is a balance of inspiring people, hands-on methods and great theories. There’s more great books out there, but these are the ones I definitely think you should read.

So consider this the official start of my career as a blogger. In the future I will probably shine a light on the continuous but fun struggle that is design, insights into things I’ve learned so far at KLM, and many more. And in the spirit of learning (now that you’ve read through it all): let me know which books I might have missed and where to improve my blogging!

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Reading list: sharing my favorite design books was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reading list: sharing my favorite design books

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