My 2021 UX Reading List

​  Just Enough Research
​   by Erika Hall   

   In Just Enough Research, co-founder of Mule Design Erika Hall distills her experience 
   into a brief cookbook of research methods. Learn how to discover your competitive
   advantages, spot your own blind spots and biases, understand and harness your
​   findings, and why you should never, ever hold a focus group.

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   Why We Fail: Learning from Experience Design
   Failures 
    by Victor Lombardi  

   Just as pilots and doctors improve by studying crash reports and postmortems,
   experience designers can improve by learning how customer experience failures
   cause products to fail in the marketplace. Rather than proselytizing a particular
   approach to design, Why We Fail holistically explores what teams actually built, why
​   the products failed, and how we can learn from the past to avoid failure ourselves.

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   Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just
   Five Days 
    by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz  

   From three partners at Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough
   problems, proven at more than a hundred companies.Entrepreneurs and leaders
   face big questions every day: What’s the most important place to focus your effort,
   and how do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings
​   and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution?

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   Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and
​   What We Can Do to Fix It​
    by Mike Montiero

   The world is working exactly as designed. And it’s not working very well. Which
   means we need to do a better job of designing it. Design is a craft with an amazing
   amount of power. The power to choose. The power to influence. As designers, we
   need to see ourselves as gatekeepers of what we are bringing into the world, and
   what we choose not to bring into the world. Design is a craft with responsibility. The
   responsibility to help create a better world for all.

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   Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Creating Value 
   through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams 
    by Jim Kalbach  

   Customers who have inconsistent, broken experiences with products and services
   are understandably frustrated. But it’s worse when people inside these companies
                                           can’t pinpoint the problem because they’re too focused on business processes. This
                                           practical book shows your company how to use alignment diagrams to turn 
                                           valuable customer observations into actionable insight. With this unique tool, you
​                                           can visually map your existing customer experience and envision future solutions.

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