Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design

Review is for both the Kindle and hardcover versions of this book. An easy to use, high level reference of various design principles. A good reference for students, designers, user interface experts or anyone involved in creating, maintaining or managing a product. The language is concise, the principles are presented in an easy to understand manner. Each principle is summed up at the highest level in the subtitle with a more detailed description in the body. A list of related principles is included and in some instances visual aids. Footnotes are at the bottom of each section. The hardcover is an attractive book with the blue spine being a glossy finish and the white part being matt. The paper is a medium weight with a nice feel and a matt finish. The Kindle version faithfully follows the book but has the added benefit that e-books have such as search, contents viewable alongside page views, bookmarks, highlights, links, notes etc. which of course makes it much more effective as a reference. I generally use the Kindle version more often on my laptop where the reader is in color and there is greater viewing space for graphics. When reading it on the Kindle Paperwhite the experience is still enjoyable but not to the same level. Pros: - Covers a wide range of design principles - Information is presented in an effective way - Text is concise and clearly written - Related principles are presented for further study - Graphics are informative and directly demonstrate the principle - Hardcover is attractive and has a nice feel to it Cons: - For the hardcover there could be a quicker way to look up principles. The contents do a good job however something like tabs might help for quicker reference without having to return to the contents page - For the Kindle version, the graphics and illustrations often fall well below the text and so lose some of the effectiveness they have in the hardcover edition where they are easily viewed alongside the text.

So here's the thing. I'm a UX/Web Designer. But I'm going to speak to designers of all trades. As a designer you have two options: 1) Keep doing what you're doing copying trends and following the crowd or 2) Get this book and be one unique badess mother fluffin design wizard. That's less than half-kidding. I was introduced to this book via a professor a couple of years ago. We had regular assignments where we had to use certain design principles for our assignments. We were using individual pages, so we were only exposed to around 30 of the 125 contained in this book. But man did it help me. It will really challenge your perceptions of design and encourage you to think critically and intentionally. Now by that, I don't mean this book is some informative how-to. It's strictly set up to give you a principle, the definition, and several clear examples. The best part is that these principles are not only universal, but also immortal. They aren't theories or things that can be disproven. They're principles that you'll be using 5, 20, 50 years from now (assuming you're still designing then...). So do yourself a favor and get this book.

Lovely idea and format. I would imagine that this book is an valuable supplemental reading/reference for students as well as professional product/graphic designers. The references to seminal works that defined each principle were an excellent addition to the book. The description indicated that this was a cross-disciplinary text so I was somewhat disappointed that I found that few principles that applied specifically to the environmental design disciplines and even fewer examples that clarified how universal principles might be used in environmental design -- for example modularity was defined solely in terms of modular electronics when it is widely used in furnishings, interiors and buildings. However, one could quibble about the inclusion/exclusion of each principle and example and perhaps the range of scale is too great to include environments in a robust way. The title is a bit confusing "universal design" is a term that is used by environmental designers to indicate an approach towards inclusion of the widest segment of the population in design solutions (including disabled people, etc). Interdisciplinary design principles may have been a more clear description of the authors intent. Overall a valuable book -- I would certainly recommend to industrial/product design students and other related disciplines

A real gem. This book has a very useful structure, almost like an encyclopedia - it takes you to major principles of design in few words per principle, explains them, gives examples, and cites some basic references. I think almost anyone will find something they did not know in there, or something that did at least make them think. This is not a textbook, nor a true professional encyclopedia, but a high level exposition of stuff that works. For what it's worth it obviously takes cues from Christopher Alexander's "A pattern language", by the goal and by the way it is organized. It is less coherent within the realm of design than "A pattern language" is within the realm of architecture - it does not completely form a body of ideas consistent within themselves. But this is simply because the principles covered are of various types and apply across disciplines (say, psychological, physical, etc...). I saw this book in a coffee shop (of all places) and had to buy one for myself almost right away.

If you want to think like Einstein, DaVinci, Newton, Kepler, Gates and Jobs all rolled into one, this book is your cup of Eureka! It gets right to to heart of what makes design, any design: graphic, mechanical, architectural, technological, programming work for the customer/user. As you read over this wide range of examples of what makes great design, it begins to give the reader insights on how great designs work, how good designs become great and how it's time to drop those things that just aren't working. If we are in a business, any business, we must create and provide what users/customers want in a way that they want, a way that is clear, a way that is inviting. Nobody buys great ideas if they're to vague or shoved down their throat. A book of good examples to emulate and bad examples to avoid.

This book is fantastic...It is designer's intuition put into words. Whether it is colors, aesthetic, convergence, defensible space, constancy, chunking, rule of thirds, the list goes on... as a designer, I know intuitively part of what is detailed in this book, but I do not necessarily have all the data backing it up or know all the reasons why I design the way I do. This book explained it to me in a concise manner...one topic per fold (description on the first page,visualization on the second). Even better it allows me to explain these very concepts to my clients or vendors. As a professional in the exhibit world I find this book extremely educational and no doubt it will be a wealth of information for a student of design. I give it 5 stars indeed. fw

We used this as a group study book at work to help our software design skills. This book it packed with useful and interesting topics. The only difficulty for what we are using it for is we need to make the connection between the concepts and how it applies to software. This is a great mental exercise but does take significantly more brain power than if the application to software were laid out directly in the book. There is an immense amount of content in this book and I think we will be exploring many of the topics in more depth in future discussions. On a non work side my wife wants to pick this up and read because of the interesting application it has to every day life and advertising. Overall a very interesting and insightful book.

This book is good for beginners and perhaps it was because of my own negligence, but I was very disappointed by the depth of each topic. A single page filled with 20% content and you are done with the topic. It's basically a set of flashcards that teaches you just the terms and what they mean. Not how, why or what situations you need to keep a topic in mind for. If you're a professional looking for insight from another professional that goes into depth; Stay away. You won't be happy. If you are just learning about the fundamentals of design, then grab it and it will be a great piece of knowledge to keep beside you while you learn for the first few months. But, rest assured once you are beyond the very simple stages of design this book will collect dust on your shelf. Overall. Good book. Not bad and not great. But worth twenty bucks...

Um livro extremamente informativo. Cada princípio do design é explicado a cada duas páginas, ou seja, você pode ir lendo aos poucos tranquilamente. Torna-se fácil para consultas posteriores também.

Aún no lo he leído, pero se ve impresionante y hermoso. Lo único es que el libro no llego taaaan bien como me gustaría. El empaque era una bolsa que sí, traía las bubujitas, pero no protegió lo suficiente. Aún así creo que el contenido es lo importante

This book was exactly what I was looking for. It's basically what I'd expect to learn from a design principles course all jammed into a book with quick and interesting examples. The content beyond the pictures and headings is a bit dry, but it doesn't matter. The headings and photos are all that you need. Plus, the index and table contents are organized in a way that can guide you to the most important principles to know depending on your goals/career. It makes navigating the book way easier. I highly recommend this book for any product designers.

Very good 👍

It's a must for any designer. I unfortunately didn't have all that range of learning about design in different industries at my design school. There were some principles I did learn, but some I definitely didn't and it's a book to reach out to sometimes :)