Knowing one’s roots is important, and it feels good to point out where I stand as a practitioner of user experience design. After ploughing through years of bookmarks and downloaded PDFs – with subsequent strict self-censoring – I came up with this list of 12 extra important sources of inspiration. The selection is wide and eclectic – something pre-Internet, something from yesterday, something obvious, and perhaps even a surprise. I learn something by integrating this knowledge into my own design process, and I hope you find something you like as well. Enjoy!

Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation [PDF] by John Lasseter (1987)

Good animation = good interaction design! John Lasseter, the grand old man of Pixar and Disney, explains the principles of communication through movement.

The Myth of Metaphor [PDF] by Alan Cooper (1995)

Use conventions, not metaphors! Good conventions are easily learnt and remembered forever – metaphors just limit our thinking to old habits and frames of mind.

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less [PDF] by Barry Schwartz (2004)

Few, but good alternatives are best! Read the whole book, which explains why low expectations are the key to happiness.

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness [PDF] by Thaler & Sunstein (2008)

As designers we have an obligation to help people choose wisely. Not because people are stupid, but because we all would rather not think for ourselves.

How To Kill Creativity [PDF] by Teresa M. Amabile (1998)

Purpose, mastery and control (and pleasure) are fragile qualities that flourish with care, and wither if neglected.

The Analysis-Synthesis Bridge Model by Dubberly, Evenson og Robinson (2008)

An analytical and straightforward presentation of the creative process, which also puts the need for design documentation into context.

Design Thinking by Tim Brown (2008)

User-centered design – said with other words. Design is not just about practical knowledge, but also important personality traits – such as curiosity, empathy and “formidlingsglede”.

Bringing Holistic Awareness to Your Design by Joseph Selbie (2009)

Cross-disciplinary collaboration permeates everything we do with user experience design. Nobody can find all the answers on their own!

5 Decision Styles. What is Yours? by Jared Spool (2009)

There’s not just one true good design process. We all take shortcuts – and it’s important that we know about the consequences of doing so.

What Goes Into a Well-Done Critique by Jared Spool (2008)

Giving and receiving critique is perhaps the most difficult – and also the most important – thing we can do to help each other become better user experience designers.

Guiding Principles for UX Designers by Whitney Hess (2010)

Design is a creative decision-making process, where principles are more important than your particular choice of user research methods.

The Fall and Rise of User Experience by Cennydd Bowles (2011)

What does it really mean to design great user experiences, and are really anything more than self-centered beta junkies with turtle-neck sweaters and Apple logos on our breakfast cereal?

Other sources of inspiration:

• So you wanna be a user experience designer — Step 1: Resources
• Essential Interaction Design Essays and Articles

If you have read everything else of interest – and want to pump yourself up on enterprise search – look no further. We have compiled our ultimate reading list for search enthusiasts, a comprehensive collection of the most interesting books on search thinking and search doing written to date. Hopefully you’ll find something worth reading here aswell.

We would love to hear what you think of these book, and please feel free to share your own suggestions in the comments below. Happy reading!

Search Thinking

Lovely books on the softer, more fluffy side of enterprise search.

Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger – the human side of information, and why tagging is better than classification.

Ambient Findability by Peter Morville – search in a wider perspective, and possible futures.

The Search by John Battelle – the story of how Google revolutionized web search and Internet business.

Search Doing

Rock-solid and down-to-earth practical advice on search design and implementation.

Search Patterns by Peter Morville – the definitive guide to design patterns for search.

Search Users Interfaces by Marti A. Hearst – a textbook packed with useful examples of search user interface designs.

Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success by Greg Nudelman – the how-to on eCommerce search design and implementation, with a lot of helpful guidelines.

Search Analytics by Louis Rosenfeld – a thorough and comprehensive guide to working with your search logs.

Faceted Search by Daniel Tunkelang – a crash course in one of the most enigmatic challenges of enterprise search.

Exploratory Search: Beyond the Query-Response Paradigm by Ryen W. White & Resa A. Roth – the academic perspective on information seeking behavior and Human-Computer Information Retrieval (HCIR).

Update:

Martin White has published two additional books on enterprise search that you may want to check out:

• Successful Enterprise Search Management
• Making Search Work: Implementing web intranet and enterprise search

flickr.com/theredproject

Technology has no inherent business value. Technology doesn’t provide improved findabiliy, decision-making or knowledge management by itself. Technology just provides features that help users perform tasks, thereby reaching their goals. Only when user goals and business goals align, can you hope to create business value. Without people, there is no purpose – and without purpose, there is no value.

Enterprise search technology is no different from the rest in this respect. In fact, I know only 3 good reasons for investing in search technology.

Spending time and money on an enterprise search platform like FAST Search For SharePoint (FS4SP) may be a good idea if you believe the success of your business depends on:

1. Consolidation of information from different data sources and formats.
2. Content refinement and entity extraction.
3. Linguistic processing and advanced querying capabilities.

There is of course more to search than this, but these features are in my opinion the hallmarks of FS4SP and the old FAST ESP – what enterprise search does better, faster and with higher tractability than any other available technology. Search is by no means the only way to access information, and similar technologies (like data warehouse, ETL and topic maps) will let you do similar things, each having their own particular strengths and weaknesses.

The true value of enterprise search technology is not bound to fair promises of improved efficiency and profitability, but to the marvels it can do in the hands of brilliant engineers – without requiring any prior knowledge of the context of use. Business value is only attainable when technological capabilities form a higher unity with user needs and business goals through cross-diciplinary user-centered design.

The success of your business may depend on improved findability, decision-making and knowledge management, and that is the true value of designing the user experience of search.

Note: this post is cross-posted at Things On Top.