On My Shelf with Steve Bromley — User Research Lead at Reach plc (London)
About me
I help companies get started with user research, and wrote about how to embed user research with product design in my new book, “Building User Research Teams”.
On my shelf
Ruined by Design
How designers destroyed the world, and what we can do to fix it
by Mike Monteiro
My opinion
Everyone on a product team makes decisions which impact our users. Over the last decade, there have been many horror stories in tech where the creators were unaware, or didn’t care, how the design decisions they were making impacted people in the real world. This provocative book reminds us that we have an ethical duty to understand how our products impact people, and that we are responsible for what we put into the world. I think it’s essential reading for everyone working on digital products.
221 pages, Independently published 2019
Get this book (amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.es)
Think like a UX researcher
How to Observe Users, Influence Design, and Shape Business Strategy
by David Travis and Philip Hodgson
My opinion
Throughout my career, I find myself referring to David Travis’s website userfocus.com for guidance on practical research topics such as how to prioritise usability issues or traps for user researchers to avoid. The book ‘Think like a UX researcher’ expands on many of the blog posts, combining practical advice on how to run reliable studies, with information on how to win over colleagues who are sceptical to the value of evidence based decision making.
306 pages, Routledge 2019
Get this book (amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.es)
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
by Matthew Frederick
My opinion
Great products are produced by multidisciplinary teams, applying their own domain expertise to tackling the problem at hand. I have found understanding other disciplines perspectives and incentives invaluable for design. This short book is a great example of that. Despite overtly being about architecture, it has great lessons on the creative process and communicating design — appropriate for anyone trying to innovate when working on digital products.
212 pages, The MIT Press 2007
Get this book (amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.es)
Games User Research
by Anders Drachenn, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, Lennart Nacke
My opinion
I used to work for PlayStation, leading research for many of their European games. I’m a huge fan of the games user research community, for their open-ness, willingness to share time and knowledge, and for the rigour that they apply to their studies. The Games User Research book is a collection of essays from leading researchers in games, on topics such as research methods, lab design and research maturity which I believe is useful for researchers working in any field.
560 pages, OUP Oxford 2018
Get this book (amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.es)
Forever Employable
How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You
by Jeff Gothelf
My opinion
Jeff Gothelf’s book has only just come out, but has already had a big impact on my thinking about my career and explaining what I do. It describes five steps to create long term employment security. It’s not only useful for people who are considering their career, but also has some great lessons for people working within large companies trying to communicate what they do and become invaluable. This is extremely useful when trying to promote new ways of working, as user researchers often are.
77 pages, Gothelf Corp 2020
Get this book (amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.es)
Quantifying the User Experience
Practical Statistics for User Research
by Jeff Sauro and James R Lewis
My opinion
It’s essential that user researchers provide reliable information to give their colleagues confidence in the design and product decisions being made. Accuracy in the conclusions being drawn from research sometimes requires an ability to apply reasonably complex statistical tests. This book is a great primer for many of the questions researchers encounter, such as “is this thing better than that thing”. As someone who isn’t a natural with stats, I have found this book an accessible reference.
372 pages, Morgan Kaufmann 2016
Get this book (amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.es)
Our series “On my shelf” features product people from all over the world who are passionate about reading and sharing their best book recommendations with the community. If you want to join the movement and share your reading list with others send us a message. Let’s get better together 📚.
