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From the sounds of your question, you're looking for a book with granular examples of individual patterns that can be quickly 'sprinkled' onto an interface to make it usable. Unfortunately, that won't make a major impact on the user experience of your product. The biggest bottlenecks to user satisfaction are fundamentals like information architecture, ...

I like Parkin's Essential Cognitive Psychology. It's not the most modern, but that really doesn't matter (more modern texts might provide more information on the underlying neuroscience, but it doesn't really alter most of the theory). Parkin is very readable (unlike the authors of many other cognitive psychology texts — my students hated Eysenck & ...

The book I can think of that is most like that site comes in book form and in web form. It is called Getting Real, and it is written by the guys at 37 Signals. You can buy the paperback, or you can read it free online. As Jimmy mentions, following a list of best practices will take you only so far. When you're ready to jump into developing a deeper ...

Three ideas for you to google around: Jeff Patton's User Story Mapping Luke Hohmann's Innovation Games Dave Gray's Gamestorming Story mapping will get you to a specification of user stories (aka requirements) and give you an overview of the system in a similar form to Todd Warfel's task analysis grid and Indi Young's mental models The ...

The best place to start is the classic The design of everyday things by Donald Norman. Even if it is over 20 years old there is nothing that compares to it. The Design of Everyday Things Don Norman Then for advanced reading I recommend Holland and Wickens' Engineering Psychology and Human Performance. Engineering Psychology and Human Performance (3rd ...

For Psychology for IT applications: you can't really beat: Human Computer Interaction - Dix, Finlay, Abowd, Beale. That's the book that got me started in the field. I can't speak specifically for Cognitive Psychology, but 2 books that will give you a great understanding of Psychology as a whole (including Cognitive Psychology) are the books by: ...

You might find the calendar of events provided by interaction-design.org useful. It's very comprehensive and available in a number of formats. I'd also recommend attending any unconference events in your local area. I've had a fantastic time at various BarCamps. You'll probably find a local UX Book Club in your area (or you could always set up your own.)

Kim Goodwin's Designing for the Digital Age (amazon) is the closest thing to a UX textbook I've seen. It presents a framework for structuring the UX design process, and then delves into the details of each step.

I don't think the number of years matter the most here. It is more the content of the books that need to be evaluated. What about conventions which usually last long? The concept of navigation bars haven't changed that much since internet exists. So, descriptions of good navigation systems would not be outdated. Regarding using a "Reset" button or not in ...

As a rough rule: implementation stuff ages. Design doesn't. The basic principles of human-computer interaction haven't changed an awful lot since the days of MITRE's famous 1979 report on the usability of jet fighter computer systems. People still need to be able to discover content, recognize keywords, spot visual hierarchies and use alignment and common ...

Tricks? Not really. Like any other handcraft this too requires time, focus and hard work to master the required visual-, interaction- and user experience design skills to deliver above average products. That said these are some great reads, the 1st more theory focussed (must read primer), the 2nd much more practical focussed. Together they will give you a ...

One book - impossible! General UX research and practical application: Undercover User Experience Design by Cennydd Bowles and James Box. Undercover User Experience Design is a pragmatic guide from the front lines, giving frank advice on making UX work in real companies with real problems. Readers will learn how to fit research, generating ideas, ...

To be the least intrusive I'd just ask for only the title of the book; anything more likely requires actually getting the book, plus filling out more form fields. If I'm reading Where the Wild Things Are to my kids I'll almost certainly know the title of the book (especially if I'm reading it several times). Other information requires good knowledge of the ...

For an undergraduate course that I took in cognitive psychology, the textbook we used was Groome's An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology: Processes and Disorders. It is quite comprehensive, and covers the whole field of cognitive psychology, including various cognitive disorders. It's mainly intended for psychology students, so you won't find many ...

The other answers have good technical books on the subject. Some more "entry-level" but highly enjoyable books are: Emotional Design by Don Norman Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

I've already voted up Don Norman's Design of Everyday things, but his book Emotional Design is a great follow up with some contemporary examples. It's a quick read, but still quite insightful. The Inmates are Running the Asylum is another essential for understanding why we need to consider the UX. Interaction Design: Beyond Human Computer Interaction ...

I would suggest: Blueprints for the web simple, (amazon .com .co.uk) - short & introduces IA with some interaction design Elements of User Experience by JJG, (amazon .com .co.uk) - holistic overview of what makes up user experience.

Communicating Design (Dan Brown) is a book I found really useful when I was starting out (in addition to Don't Make me think & A Project Guide to UX Design already mentioned above). Communicating Design does a great job of presenting the for who, what, where, when of different kinds, and layers, of ia/ux documentation (user needs, strategy, and design ...

I am interested in this too. Last month, I went to Business of Software 2009. I thought it was fantastic and perfect for UX designers. (http://businessofsoftware.org/speakers.aspx) I've heard great things about SxSW (http://sxsw.com/) Is there a local UX group in your area? It's usually helpful to network locally. That's an easy way to find out about ...

The trick is analysis, testing, and experience. The design should first and foremost be informative and accessible, and (this is important) relevant to the purpose of the product. Before deploying a design, usability testing can be done to identify problems. Last, keep trying; make small single page mockups by hand or using any tools you'd like to try out to ...

More than any books I have found getting a clear expectation of requirements from the end users is key. Along with this, spend the time to find out what they are using now and watch how they use it. Some people hate WISWYG editors because they think they function like MS Word, which we know they don't. For situations like that abstracting people from that ...

There really are no shortcuts. As the others have mentioned it comes with experience. One thing I started doing is using Evernote to clip websites that I am particularly attracted to. It has become a pattern library of sorts that I can refer back to. I also found the Non-Designer's Design Book helpful.