97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know

Preface

The user experience (UX) community is full of people who want to help others lead better lives. Whether we are making a website easier to use or creating designs that guide people to make healthier decisions, we just want to help others. This also applies to our colleagues across the industry: we want everyone who has chosen this occupation to thrive. That’s why you’ll often see more hugs than handshakes at UX conferences—everyone in the field is just so nice.

That’s the intended spirit of this book—it’s by the UX community and for the UX community, and it intends to give back to the UX community. To ensure that contributors extended beyond my personal circle, we had a submission process in which anyone could submit a chapter. This helped to solidify my theory about UXers being so nice. Every stranger I met during the process was generous and eager to give back to the community. To round out the community giving, the authors have decided on a number of UX nonprofit organizations to which any book royalties will go, starting with Creative Reaction Lab in St. Louis and the Center for Civic Design. This book wasn’t written to make a buck or to give people exposure. We wrote this book to help the UX community do great work.

Many people involved with UX came across the field by chance. My UX “aha” moment came during my customer support days, when I sat as a participant in a usability study. With my psych undergrad focus on visual space perception and my love of computer geekery, ...