My new favorite book is The Design of Sites, Second Edition. Not only does it eruditely cover just about any topic in User Experience Design that I could think of; but, it is the most user-friendly book.

So, the other day I was asked to create yet another information graphic. Even though I’ve made a handful of these, I always like to step back and do some research - almost as if this is the first time I’ve designed this feature. So, for information graphics I turn to the following for my inspiration.

Information Aesthetics Blog: www.infosthetics.com

Totally awesome site that is regularly updated with great information graphics. Browse by category, month or keyword for everything from charts and graphs to calendars and weather.

Digital Diagrams, by Trevor Bounford

Great collection of ideas that always get my mind going. Beautifully illustrated examples from some of the information graphics greats like John Grimwade (who now does graphics for Portfolio magazine - whose website I helped design… but that’s another post), and Grundy and Northedge.

This week, I had a good conversation with a User Experience Associate (the equivalent to a Jr. UX Designer) about some basic reads of our trade. He just bought a couple recommendations I’d made:

Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell - Basic toolkit of interaction patterns with straightforward explanations.

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Typographic Elements of Style by Robert Bringhurst - Somewhat advanced tome on type. To get acquainted, flip through it and study the diagrams and examples. I guarantee the presentation of your UX design will improve. overnight.

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And to that list I’ll add a couple we’ve already read (of course):

Don’t Make me Think by Steve Krug - This book is always the first one I recommend to people interested in user centered design. Also has fun little comics about the office space.

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About Face by Alan Cooper & Robert Reimann- If you’re an Information Architect (or want to be), but you don’t know who Alan Cooper is - you should. I would recommend any of his books.