The 10 Design Books For Non-Designers
So you’re not a designer? That’s ok, I won’t judge you. By many formal measurements, I too am not a “designer.” Designer or not, the principles of good design are forming the modern foundation of business strategy and organizational design.
As the bridge between designers and non-designers widens, people who possess design skills are increasingly rare and therefore more isolated. But good design isn’t as simple as it seems. It requires a nuanced conversation between designers and non-designers about value, experience, and connection. To help bridge this gap, we need to create a shared language.
To kickstart the formation of this new language, let’s take some time to explore a few pieces of literature that inform design viewpoints. Below is a short list of books that help executives understand, appreciate, communicate the value of design. If you'd like to read through the full list, I recommend working in the order listed below. Enjoy!
Good Strategy Bad Strategy
A great deal of strategy work is trying to figure out what is going on. Not just deciding what to do, but the more fundamental problem of comprehending the situation. ― Deckle Edge, Good Strategy Bad Strategy
Overview
Rumelt argues that the heart of a good strategy is insight—into the true nature of the situation, into the hidden power in a situation, and into an appropriate response. He shows you how insight can be cultivated with a wide variety of tools for guiding your own thinking.
Why Read This Book
This book highlights the importance of design and business working in concert. Design is about solving problems, but one must know what problems to solve in order to design a solution.
The Design of Everyday Things
“Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.” ― Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
Overview
The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.
Why Read This Book
A fantastic view into how design impacts our lives, why it matters, and how designers can be more thoughtful about the designs they bring to the world.
Universal Principles of Design
“Simplicity is achieved when everyone can easily understand and use the design, regardless of experience, literacy, or concentration level.” ― William Lidwell, Universal Principles of Design
Overview
Whether a marketing campaign or a museum exhibit, a video game or a complex control system, the design we see is the culmination of many concepts and practices brought together from a variety of disciplines. Because no one can be an expert on everything, designers have always had to scramble to find the information and know-how required to make a design work—until now.
Why Read This Book
While I’d argue this book is primarily for designers, it acts as a great resource for exploring biases, understanding key design principles, and promoting shared design frameworks.
Thinking with Type
“Readers usually ignore the typographic interface, gliding comfortably along literacy’s habitual groove. Sometimes, however, the interface should be allowed to fail. By making itself evident, typography can illuminate the construction and identity of a page, screen, place, or product.” ― Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type
Overview
Our all time best selling book is now available in a revised and expanded second edition. Thinking with Type is the definitive guide to using typography in visual communication, from the printed page to the computer screen.
Why Read This Book
This book provides and incredibly approachable look into the power of type as a communication tool. No matter who you are, this book delivers on its promise.
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
“An important function of almost every system is to ensure its own perpetuation.” ― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer
Overview
Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.
Why Read This Book
Hands down one of my personal favorites, this book showcases how complex interactions exist and permeate our world. As we build new products, a systems-driven approach helps us avoid unintended consequences and improve our solutions.
Designing Design
“Successful communication depends on how well we listen, rather than how well we push our opinions on the person seated before us.” ― Kenya Hara, Designing Design
Overview
Representing a new generation of designers in Japan, Kenya Hara (born 1958) pays tribute to his mentors, using long overlooked Japanese icons and images in much of his work. In Designing Design, he impresses upon the reader the importance of “emptiness” in both the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan, and its application to design, made visible by means of numerous examples from his own work.
Why Read This Book
A highly-pleasurable design book that offers a more theoretical lens about design.
Less and More
“Question everything generally thought to be obvious.” ― Dieter Rams, Less and More
Overview
In his more than 40 years at Braun, Rams established himself as one of the most influential designers of the twentieth century. True to the principle of “less but better” his elegantly clear visual language not only defined product design for generations, but also our fundamental understanding of what design is and what it can and should do. Less and More offers boundless inspiration for anyone interested in the aesthetic and functional aspects of applied design.
Why Read This Book
Dieter Rams is a larger-than-life figure within the design community. If nothing else, this book is worth reading for social credibility ;).
Adversarial Design
“democracy is not simply order and rationality displayed in voting, structured decision making, and legislating, but that it also and necessarily is contentious affect and expression.” ― Carl DiSalvo, Adversarial Design
Overview
In Adversarial Design, Carl DiSalvo examines the ways that technology design can provoke and engage the political. He describes a practice, which he terms “adversarial design,” that uses the means and forms of design to challenge beliefs, values, and what is taken to be fact. It is not simply applying design to politics―attempting to improve governance for example, by redesigning ballots and polling places; it is implicitly contestational and strives to question conventional approaches to political issues.
Why Read This Book
What I love about this book is how it translates design into a broader discussion around impact and influence. If everything is designed, then we must be thoughtful with our practice.
The Best Interface Is No Interface
“Overload, clutter, and confusion are not attributes of information, they are failures of design.”45” ― Golden Krishna, The Best Interface Is No Interface
Overview
Are you sick? There’s an app for that! Need to pray? There’s an app for that! Dead? Well, there’s an app for that, too! And most apps are intentionally addictive distractions that end up taking our attention away from things like family, friends, sleep, and oncoming traffic. There’s a better way.
Why Read This Book
As we look towards the future, this book challenges the idea that the screen is a net-positive. We ready to rid yourself of the “there’s an app for that” mentality.
The Industries of the Future
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” ― Alec J. Ross, The Industries of the Future
Overview
In The Industries of the Future, Ross provides a “lucid and informed guide” (Financial Times) to the changes coming in the next ten years. He examines the fields that will most shape our economic future, including robotics and artificial intelligence, cybercrime and cybersecurity, the commercialization of genomics, the next step for big data, and the impact of digital technology on money and markets.
Why Read This Book
The least design-focused book in this list, but also one of the most important books on innovation. This brief overview hammers home many of the methodologies taught and used in design, including design thinking and human-centered design.
