25 Aug 2025
|24 min
Product design books
Discover the top product design books recommended by the Lyssna community.
25 Aug 2025
|24 min
We always love the question, “Have you read any good books lately?”. We recently asked the Lyssna community what product design books they’ve enjoyed, and you came through with some fantastic recommendations.
Let’s dive into the top nine product design books you should check out.
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Author: Susan M. Weinschenk
Design is more than making pretty products that turn a profit. Sure, aesthetics matter, but so does creating something that helps people and makes their lives easier. Susan M. Weinschenk’s 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People offers a wealth of insights based on cognitive science, making it one of the best books for product design.
The book covers topics like what colors symbolize in different cultures, how our brains make sense of symbols and text through patterns, and how confirmation biases keep people from considering different perspectives. There’s plenty of hard science and research, but this isn’t overly academic read. The lessons are short and to the point, and reveal so much that goes on in people’s brains.
We love books on product design that get into the psychology of how people process information, which is crucial to a customer-centered approach. Exploring the links between cognition and behavior, Weinschenk's book teaches the psychological concepts that every product designer should know.
Author: Sarah Frier
When Instagram launched on October 6 2010, it was very different from what you have on your phone today. Being a social media influencer wasn’t a career choice. Government regulations were just starting to catch up in protecting people’s data. And Instagram was a quirky app for those who wanted their flawless digital photos to have the artifacts and grit of analog cameras.
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram is a wonderful piece of journalism and storytelling. It covers Instagram at the beginning, when it was an app for the hipster economy, all the way to its mainstream proliferation and acquisition by Facebook. Along the way, we learn from the people who worked at the company how Instagram’s features, community, and marketing strategies shifted as their audience changed and grew. There’s much they did right and many missteps, and depending on how you view Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Instagram’s acquisition was either the best thing to happen to them or the worst. While we all know how the story of Instagram and Facebook ends, this is a real page-turner in seeing how it all played out.
With its strong sense of narrative, No Filter is a Silicon Valley hero’s tale, with Instagram ultimately coming up against Facebook, who was neither friend or foe, and ultimately coming out the other side as a company that changed social media forever. With a great deal of research, an informed perspective, and plenty of takes on what happened behind the scenes, this is a gripping and engaging read, making it one of the best books on product design.
Author: Simon Garfield
Typography has a huge impact on how digital products are experienced and their effectiveness in relaying information to users. It’s so important that big brands like Apple, Google, and even Netflix put in the extra effort and money to develop proprietary typefaces. But why are certain styles of lettering preferable to others?
Even to the untrained eye, it’s apparent how typefaces may differ. Times New Roman and Arial are two distinct typefaces, and even non-designers would pick up that one is more stuffy and traditional while the other is more loose and contemporary. If you’ve ever wondered what makes one style of typeface look and feel different from the other, Just My Type is an essential read.
While Just My Type doesn’t often come up in discussions regarding books on product design, learning about the history of typography, it’s technical aspects, and how it can evoke emotions makes Just My Type a great read for anyone who wants to understand typography at a deeper level. For those in product design, reading about public reactions can be informative. For instance, Ikea changed its font from Futura to Verdana, and the Obama campaign used Gotham. Even the lettering on Beatles' albums shows how font choice can make or break a product's success.
Authors: Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz
Many in tech put their faith in the adage of “Breaking things and moving fast” without a trace of self-awareness. Yes, Google also moves quickly, but embraces a more mindful and less reckless approach. Authors Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz all worked at this tech giant, and their experiences and knowledge make Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days a useful guide showing how to tackle challenges with precision, but without sacrificing innovation.
We’re huge fans of product design books that offer advice that can immediately be put into action. Learning how to map out challenges and goals, storyboarding, and the importance of gathering targeted user feedback are important lessons. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days is one of the best books for product design that can help teams better solve the often complex difficulties they face in a shorter amount of time.
Authors: Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt
There’s so much that we engage with that we don’t even think about, from the raised patterns on manhole covers that make them less slippery, to the gentle slope of curb cuts that prevent us from tripping over them, to the symbols and signs that communicate warnings and information. 99% Invisible City explores the design of what we interact with in our day-to-day lives. We love product design books that illuminate what we might otherwise go unnoticed, and 99% Invisible City talks about so many commonplace things that are extraordinary in terms of how they’re designed.
This book is divided into short vignettes focusing on what we encounter out in the real world, letting us view them through a more detailed lens. Along with its informative and upbeat text, the hand-drawn illustrations, which feel like they're from a graphic novel, complement what's being discussed.
With its snappy writing and beautiful artistry, this is one of the best books on product design to keep on your desk when you need a bit of inspiration or a quick jolt of design nerdery.
Author: Aarron Walter
Design for Emotion is a gem of a book, tying together the more touchy-feely aspects of the human experience to the design and usability of products. Author Aarron Walter writes with enthusiasm about design and psychology, which makes this one of the best books on product design to bring these concepts together. Along with discussing psychological concepts and theories, there are also case studies that back up Walter’s claims, showing why emotionally rich designs can lead to more successful products.
Design for Emotion stands out from other product design books as a must-read for designers who want to strengthen their knowledge about the psychology of design and connect with customers in more meaningful ways. If you’re looking for product design books you can knock out over the weekend, you’ll find Design for Emotion a quick and informative read that will help you better understand people’s needs.
Author: Tom Greever
Who hasn’t had a design meeting or presentation that’s totally bombed? It can be an awful feeling, but sometimes emotions and egos can get the best of us. And if you don’t know how to talk about design with non-designers, miscommunication can happen. Articulating Design Decisions will help you become a more effective speaker. If you’re looking for a book that covering the soft skills you need to be better in your role as a product designer, it’s a must-read.
Author Tom Greever is a front-end designer and UX director. His book covers everything from building better relationships and how to sharpen your listening skills, to bouncing back from meetings when everything falls apart. The themes of understanding and empathy run through this book, and Greever shares so much of his personal experiences, making the scenarios very relatable.
Overflowing with great communication advice, real-world examples, and discussions about improving how people from different roles work together, Articulating Design Decisions will give even those with more introverted tendencies strategies for navigating the often tricky spaces of product design meetings.
Authors: Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
Product development combines human-focused design, business strategy, and collaborative, adaptable, and iterative agile practices. This creates products that meet both business and customer needs. Touching on the major points of product design with an impressive level of depth, Lean UX: Designing Great Products With Agile Teams popularized the term “lean UX”, and it’s one of the best product design books that focuses on user experience. Lean UX: Designing Great Products With Agile Teams fully explores how agile methods lead to better results.
Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden delve into many aspects of iteration. By making iterative changes and checking if they make a product easier to use, the design process stays flexible instead of being limited by strict rules.. If you’ve ever wondered how to quickly test changes, analyze the results, and shift course if needed, you’ll find this a valuable read.
Author: Tim Brown
The term “design thinking” often gets thrown around in discussions about product design, but what exactly goes into this process? Change by Design is a primer on all things design thinking, covering how innovation, prototyping, iteration, and taking a customer-centered approach come together for more effective and flexible frameworks for product development.
Tim Brown, who is the CEO of IDEO, a company known for its forward thinking and creative work, shares plenty of relevant insights, knowledge, and applications of design thinking. His agency has worked with a diverse range of clients, and he shares stories of helping Shimano develop coaster bikes that were more inclusive and easier to maintain than traditional bikes, creating a more friendly and efficient intake of patients at SSM Depaul Health Center, and helping improve surgical tools for Gyrus ACMI. It’s enlightening to hear about the different ways that design thinking can be implemented to create better products.
This was one of the favorite product design books our Lyssna community recommended, covering all of the principles of design thinking, and showing why this philosophy is so effective in building, refining, and launching new products.
Author: Steve Krug
Sometimes the best design advice is the simplest. Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think has been a go-to resource for designers and developers for over two decades, and for good reason. The book's central premise is that good design should be intuitive – users shouldn't have to stop and figure out how to use your product.
Krug breaks down complex usability concepts into digestible, actionable advice. He covers everything from navigation design to mobile usability, always with a focus on reducing cognitive load for users. The book is filled with real-world examples and before-and-after screenshots that clearly demonstrate his points.
What makes this one of the best books on product design is its accessibility. Krug writes in a conversational tone that makes usability principles easy to understand and apply, whether you're designing a website or a mobile app. If you're looking for practical wisdom that you can immediately put to use, Don't Make Me Think delivers clear guidance that will improve any digital product.
Author: Don Norman
Ever struggled to open a door, only to realize you were pushing when you should have been pulling? Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things explores exactly these kinds of everyday design failures and successes. This foundational book examines how good design communicates function without requiring instruction manuals or trial and error.
Norman introduces concepts like affordances (what an object suggests you can do with it) and signifiers (the clues that tell you how to use something). He shows how these principles apply whether you're designing a door handle or a smartphone app. The book is packed with examples of both brilliant and terrible design choices we encounter daily.
This is essential reading for anyone in product design because it teaches you to see design everywhere and understand why some products feel intuitive while others frustrate users. Norman's insights about human psychology and how we interact with objects translate directly into creating digital products that people can use effortlessly. It's the perfect companion to other psychology-focused design books, offering timeless principles that remain relevant decades after publication.
Author: Nir Eyal
Why do we check our phones dozens of times per day? What makes some products irresistible while others are quickly abandoned? Nir Eyal's Hooked dives deep into the psychology of user engagement, revealing how successful products create habits that keep people coming back.
The book introduces the "Hook Model" – a four-step process of trigger, action, variable reward, and investment that creates user habits. Eyal examines everything from social media platforms to fitness apps, showing how they apply psychological principles to increase engagement. He also addresses the ethical considerations of building habit-forming products, discussing the responsibility designers have toward their users.
This is one of the best books on product design for understanding user retention and engagement. The insights are backed by behavioral psychology research but presented in an accessible way with plenty of real-world case studies. If you're working on products where user engagement is crucial, Hooked provides a framework for thinking about how design choices influence behavior and create lasting user relationships.
Authors: William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler
Design principles are everywhere, but they're often scattered across different disciplines and hard to apply consistently. Universal Principles of Design solves this problem by bringing together 200 fundamental design concepts in one comprehensive reference. Each principle gets a clear explanation, visual examples, and guidance on when and how to apply it.
The book covers everything from the 80/20 rule and color psychology to accessibility guidelines and cognitive load theory. What makes it particularly valuable is how it connects principles from different fields – architecture, psychology, engineering – and shows their relevance to product design. The visual format makes it easy to browse and find inspiration when you're stuck on a design challenge.
This belongs on every product designer's desk alongside other reference books. Whether you need a quick reminder about hierarchy principles or want to explore new approaches to problem-solving, Universal Principles of Design provides reliable guidance backed by research and real-world application. It's the kind of book that becomes more valuable the more you use it, revealing new insights as your design experience grows.
Author: Brad Frost
Modern digital products aren't built page by page anymore – they're built with systems of reusable components. Brad Frost's Atomic Design revolutionized how designers and developers think about creating scalable, maintainable design systems. Drawing inspiration from chemistry, Frost breaks down interfaces into atoms (basic elements), molecules (simple combinations), organisms (complex components), templates, and pages.
This methodology helps teams create consistent user experiences across large products while making it easier to update and maintain designs over time. Frost provides practical guidance on building pattern libraries, style guides, and design systems that actually get used by development teams.
If you're working on any digital product larger than a simple website, Atomic Design is essential reading. The book addresses one of the biggest challenges in modern product design: maintaining consistency and efficiency as teams and products grow. Frost's systematic approach has influenced how major companies organize their design work, making this one of the most impactful books on product design methodology in recent years.
Author: Eric Ries
Product design doesn't happen in a vacuum – it's part of building viable businesses that solve real problems for real people. Eric Ries's The Lean Startup provides the broader context for how design fits into product development, emphasizing rapid experimentation, validated learning, and iterative improvement.
The book introduces concepts like the minimum viable product (MVP) and the build-measure-learn feedback loop, which have become standard practices in tech companies worldwide. Ries shows how to test assumptions quickly and cheaply, pivot when necessary, and avoid building products nobody wants.
While not exclusively about design, The Lean Startup complements design-focused books by providing the business methodology that makes good design possible. Understanding how to validate ideas, measure success, and iterate based on real user feedback is crucial for product designers who want their work to have meaningful impact. This book helps designers think beyond aesthetics and usability to consider the bigger picture of product success.
Author: Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin, Cristopher Noessel
Alan Cooper is often called the "father of Visual Basic" and a pioneer in interaction design. About Face is his comprehensive guide to creating digital products that truly serve users' needs, developed with his team of interaction design experts. The book covers the entire design process, from research and personas to detailed interaction patterns and interface design.
Cooper and his co-authors introduce goal-directed design, which focuses on understanding what users are trying to accomplish rather than just what they're doing. The book provides detailed guidance on conducting user research, creating personas that actually drive design decisions, and designing interactions that feel natural and efficient.
This is one of the most thorough books on product design methodology available. While it requires more investment than shorter reads, About Face provides deep knowledge about user-centered design principles and practical techniques for applying them. The authors' emphasis on understanding user goals and designing interactions accordingly has influenced a generation of designers and remains highly relevant for anyone creating complex digital products.
Authors: Bill Albert and Tom Tullis
Great design isn't just about intuition and creativity – it's also about understanding whether your design actually works for users. Measuring the User Experience bridges the gap between design theory and quantifiable results, showing how to gather meaningful data about user behavior and satisfaction.
The book covers both quantitative methods (like usability metrics and A/B testing) and qualitative approaches (such as user interviews and surveys). Albert and Tullis provide practical guidance on choosing the right research methods, conducting studies effectively, and interpreting results in ways that inform design decisions.
This is essential reading for product designers who want to move beyond opinions and assumptions to make data-driven design decisions. The book shows how to measure everything from task completion rates to emotional responses, giving designers the tools to prove the value of their work and identify areas for improvement. In an industry that increasingly values evidence-based design, this book provides the foundation for conducting meaningful UX research.
Author: Rob Fitzpatrick
One of the biggest challenges in product design is getting honest feedback from users. People are naturally polite and often tell you what they think you want to hear, especially if you're asking leading questions. Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test teaches you how to conduct user interviews that reveal genuine insights about user needs and behaviors.
The book's title comes from the idea that you should be able to ask your mom about your business idea and get useful feedback – even though she loves you and wants to be supportive. Fitzpatrick provides specific techniques for asking questions that uncover real problems and validate (or invalidate) your assumptions about users.
This is a quick read that delivers immediately actionable advice for anyone involved in user research. The book focuses on the conversation skills that complement formal UX research methods, showing how to learn about users through natural dialogue rather than formal surveys or focus groups. For product designers who need to understand user needs but don't have access to extensive research resources, The Mom Test provides essential skills for gathering reliable user feedback.
Author: Indi Young
Understanding what users are thinking and feeling goes beyond surface-level usability testing. Indi Young's Mental Models introduces a research methodology that reveals the deeper cognitive processes behind user behavior. The book shows how to create visual diagrams that map out users' thoughts, emotions, and decision-making processes.
Young's approach involves conducting in-depth interviews with users and organizing their responses into mental model diagrams that reveal patterns in how people approach tasks and make decisions. These insights help designers create products that align with users' natural thought processes rather than forcing them to adapt to arbitrary interface conventions.
This book is particularly valuable for designers working on complex products where user behavior involves significant decision-making or emotional investment. Young's methodology provides tools for understanding the "why" behind user actions, not just the "what" and "how." The mental models approach has been adopted by major companies to inform product strategy and design decisions, making this an important addition to any designer or UX researcher's toolkit.
Author: Alla Kholmatova
As digital products become more complex and teams grow larger, maintaining design consistency becomes increasingly challenging. Alla Kholmatova's Design Systems provides comprehensive guidance on creating, implementing, and maintaining design systems that actually work for real teams building real products.
The book covers everything from the foundational elements of design systems (typography, color, spacing) to governance models that ensure systems stay useful and up-to-date. Kholmatova draws on her experience working with companies like FutureLearn and includes case studies showing how different organizations have approached design system challenges.
What sets this book apart from other resources on design systems is its focus on the human side of systematic design. Kholmatova addresses common implementation problems and provides strategies for getting buy-in from stakeholders, training team members, and evolving systems over time. For anyone working on products with multiple team members or complex user interfaces, Design Systems offers essential guidance for scaling design work effectively while maintaining quality and consistency.
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Jeff Cardello
Technical writer
Jeff Cardello is a freelance writer who loves all things tech and design. Outside of being a word nerd, he enjoys playing bass guitar, riding his bike long distances, and recently started learning about data science and how to code with Python.
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