In the little spare time that I occasionally get I find myself doing two things, I either delve into history books or I read or skim through design and usability guidelines. There are thousands of books on usability and user experience, some are good and some are just awful. I find usability & design guidelines from manufacturers and top brands more useful and insightful. Take Apple’s guidelines for example, they contain a wealth of information and they are not written by people who just talk theory. Instead these guidelines are from real world companies that produce software and hardware that are sold to millions of users.
Here are some usability and design guidelines that I find really useful:
- iPhone & iPad (iOS) User Experience Guidelines
- iPhone & iPad (iOS) User Interface Guidelines
- Mac OS X User Experience Guidelines
- Mac OS X User Interface Guidelines
- Microsoft Surface User Experience Guidelines
- Windows Mobile User Interface Guidelines
- Windows Phone User Experience Design Guidelines
- Windows Touch User Interface Guidelines
- Windows User Experience & User Interface Guidelines
- Android User Interface Guidelines
- Icon Design Guidelines
- Widget Design Guidelines
- Menu Design Guidelines
- Activity and Task Design Guidelines
