Read great books. That's what all successful people seem to say.

In the spirit of these successful people, I decided to compile a list of 6 books that every user researcher must-read.

Compiling this list all by myself would be super bias so instead, I read a few listicles from user researchers and found which books they most frequently mentioned, it's a data-driven approach, like a mini-survey. It was super convenient also!

The results are in, here are the top 6 must-read books according to user researchers:

Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited by Steve Krug

This book appears everywhere. Originally published in 2000, the book was revised in 2005 and 2013 and is consistently described in reviews as timeless. It’s perfect for anyone getting started with usability and covers most of the foundational concepts you need. The subtitle of this book is A Common Sense Approach To Web Usability and many of the concepts are indeed common sense. If you are a hardcore usability veteran then many of the concepts will already be familiar to you. Otherwise, it's a great place to get started or to recap the basics.

Link: https://amzn.to/3fak01b

Just Enough Research by Erika Hall

This book was originally published in 2013 and republished in 2019 (are we seeing a trend?). Just Enough Research is about asking better questions more often and thinking critically about the answers we receive. Erika distils her experiences into the perfect guide to get started with popular research methods and will have you thinking about competitive advantages, blind spots, biases, and why you should never, ever hold a focus group.

Link: https://amzn.to/3clvwoH

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research by Elizabeth Goodman

This book aims to bridge the gap between what digital companies think they know about their users and the actual reality of user experience. You will explore the concepts and techniques that can help you get outside your bubble and into the shoes of your users.

The book is organized into three parts.

Part 1 discusses the benefits of end-user research and the ways it fits into the development of useful, desirable, and successful products.
Part 2 presents techniques for understanding people’s needs, desires, and abilities.
Part 3 explains the communication and application of research results.

Link: https://amzn.to/3ssxHfS

Quantifying the User Experience: Practical Statistics for User Research by James R. Lewis and Jeff Sauro

This book is the ultimate guide to using statistics to solve quantitative problems in user research. Many researchers are qualitatively focused and this book can help them to upskill and become a mixed-methods researcher.

Using this guide, researchers can quantify good and bad design by looking at indicators like conversion, completion rate, completion time, perceived satisfaction, recommendations, and sales. The book also discusses ways to quantify user research, summarize data, compute margins of error, determine appropriate samples sizes, standardize usability questionnaires, and settle controversies in measurement and statistics.

Link: https://amzn.to/3lQI3Dz

(Note: Need to understand your users better? Use our solution, OpinionX, to stack rank your user’s problems and see what issues they care most about. Try it for free!)

Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights

Everyone feels like they can conduct a good user interview. It's just asking a few questions, right? Unfortunately, that's not the case. Steve Portigal's "Interviewing Users" provides invaluable interviewing techniques and tools that enable you to conduct informative interviews with anyone. You'll move from simply gathering data to uncovering powerful insights about people.

Link: https://amzn.to/3lQd2zz

Research Practice: Perspectives from UX researchers in a changing field by Gregg Bernstein

This is the newest book on the list and was chosen due to its extreme relevance for the modern-day user researcher. “Research Practice” captures the day-to-day work of user research—what it looks like to work with peers and stakeholders, to raise awareness of research, to make tradeoffs, and to build a larger team. This book takes you inside the field of applied user research through the stories and experiences of the people doing the work. Each chapter explores a specific theme and outlines exactly what user researchers can expect to face during each step in their career.

Link: https://amzn.to/3ssEjuI

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6 books every user researcher MUST read