Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and FacilitatorsPatrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team transformed my thinking on and off the job. The fictional tale of an all too real situation resonated with mil...
The Laws of Simplicity by John MaedaJohn Maeda is a designer and teacher with a long career in both areas. Like me, he’s come to the “less is more” strategy when it comes to building applicatio...
Why We Work by Barry SchwartzWhy We Work The book covers an interesting and growing theory for how intellectual advancement has changed the landscape for how we work. in a nutshell, Schw...
Fifty Quick Ideas To Improve Your User Stories by Gojko Adzic & David EvansThis is probably the most useful book I’ve read in the last year. Anyone that works on an agile software team and has to deal with user stories in any way ne...
Hooked, How To Build Habit Forming Products by Nir Eyal & Ryan Hoover“…one-third of Americans say they would rather give up sex than lose their cell phones.” – Nir Eyal It’s not very often that I’ll write about a book before I...
Sketchnote Handbook by Mike RohdeI’ve been a sketch note fan for a year or two and even taken a class at General Assembly. Nothing has been as informative, helpful, and inspiring as Mike Roh...
Information Architecture by Peter Morville & Louis RosenfeldOnce again, one of those books that I just didn’t get around to until now. It’s a piece of foundational literature on the subject and now I know why. The boo...
The Five Dysfunctions of a TeamAnother one that I’m finally getting around to. Long over do. My former lead engineer at CollabNet brought this into the office one day. I’m about halfway th...
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and LeadWhile I’m just adding this to the blog now, this has been on my must read list for a couple of years. The ideas in this book have quite literally changed my ...
Design Is How It Works: How the Smartest Companies Turn Products into IconsFinally got around to finishing this. I’ve had it as an iBook for years but I’m a Kindle kind of guy these days. Good stuff for wrapping your head around ove...
Evil By Design by Chris NodderI’ve actually heard Nodder lecture and he really is pointing out some evil methods but he’s up front about it. How we use the information is not his doing. T...
Seductive Interaction Design by Stephen P. AndersonSeductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences (Voices That Matter) I would have liked it more if it had some “before an...
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing CodeREFACTORING : IMPROVING THE DESIGN OF EXISTING CODE It’s nice to have a basis for making refactoring decisions beyond “it just feels right”. Martin Fowler ha...
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve KrugIt’s always good to go back to basics. While good usability testing and basic behavioral metrics guide the process, a design has to have a base starting poin...
