101 UX Principles

Improve user experience by avoiding common frustrations and focusing on what matters

Endorsements“This updated version of 101 UX Principles is a delight. It’s an educational and fun provocation to look at the world of UX differently – solidly from the user’s point of view.”

–Elizabeth Churchill, Director of User Experience, Google

“A phenomenal reference guide. Complete with case studies, a record of personal experience, and visual examples, Grant makes it clear why these techniques have found their way into the canon of UX best practices.”

–Jeff Gothelf, Author of Lean UX

“..I recommend it to anyone looking to learn the basics and also for more experienced designers – the author’s candid opinions will force you to revisit some of your established assumptions!”

–Anne Marie-Leger, Staff Product Designer, Shopify

“An absolute must-read, not only for UX designers, but this book is also super relevant for product managers trying to get better at product usability. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!”

–Trent Blakely, Sr. Product Manager, Equinix

Book DescriptionThis book is a manifesto of UX/UI design best practices to help you put the focus back on what really matters: the user. From UX laws to practical UI, color, typography, and accessibility advice, it’s all packed into this easy-to-consult and fun read:

Essential UX laws
Handy best practices
Snippets of technical knowledge for anyone who wants to work in the digital space

101 UX Principles demonstrates the success from best-in-class products and leads the way to delight your users. Keep it on your desk for quick reference, send as a gift to colleagues to build allies, or brandish it as your weapon of choice during meetings to fight for your users’ right to a better digital experience.

Sneak a peek at some of the new and updated principles in this UX design book:

Work with user expectations, not against them
Make interactive elements obvious and discoverable
Optimize your interface for mobile
Streamline creating and entering passwords
Respect users’ time and effort in your forms
Use animation with care in user interfaces
How to handle destructive user actions
Chatbots are usually a bad idea – and how to make them better
Use A/B testing to test your ideas
Let users give feedback, but don’t hassle them
Make it clear to users if they’re joining or signing-in
Only use modal views for blocking actions
How complexity can be good for some users

Who is this book forThis book is a distillation of Will’s 20+ years of experience in the form of successful design principles to help early career UX designers learn the ropes and provide experienced professionals with new ideas when building their products.

UX/UI designers, product managers, entrepreneurs, aspiring strategists, and anyone creating a digital product, service or a campaign will find this book extremely useful.

Author Biography

Will Grant is a British UI/UX expert and a digital product designer. He is a web technology entrepreneur with over 25 years’ experience, leading teams (and products) at the intersection of technology and usability. After his Computer Science degree, Will trained with Jakob Nielsen and Bruce Tognazzini at the Nielsen Norman Group – the world leaders in usable design. Since then, Will has overseen the user experience and interaction design of several large-scale web sites and apps, reaching over a billion users in the process. Will is a “design purist” and obsessed with building beautiful, compelling, and familiar products that customers intuitively know how to use.