In total, these 5 ebooks by the collaborative design app UXPin provide over 700 pages of information with hundreds of examples. Download each for free to expand your design knowledge and palette of techniques.
1. Web Design Trends 2016
With an industry that changes as rapidly as ours, Web Design Trends 2016 keeps designers up-to-date on what the most modern trends are, why they’re effective, and the best practices for recreating them yourself. The 2016 edition focuses on 10 trends of the moment like
- Card layout
- Flat design 2.0
- HD visuals
- Minimalism
- Microinteractions
- … and more
In addition to illustrating its points with 166 screenshots from the sites that do the trends right, this e-book also links out to over 100 additional online resources to complement your education.
2. Web UI Design Best Practices
Appropriate for both beginners and experts, Web UI Design Best Practices offers exactly what the title promises: the most useful practices of UI design for the web. This book spans the entire range of web design disciplines — visuals, UI, UX, research, and more — giving you a concise and complete guidebook for web design as a whole.
This e-book takes a casual, readable approach to otherwise complex topics like
- Color theory
- Visual hierarchy
- Navigation
- Applying patterns
- Documentation
- Research
- Planning
- Typography
3. Web UI Design Patterns 2016: Volume 1
One of the newer publications in the UXPin library, Web UI Design Patterns 2016: Volume 1 handles the popular UI patterns of the moment in the same manner as the Web Design Trends 2016. This e-book reads like a catalogue of UI patterns for you to browse, with Volume 1 divided into the categories of
- Pattern Hierarchy
- User Input
- Controls
- Navigation
Each of the 38 patterns comes with a concise description, list of best practices for applying it, and examples from 3 or 4 big-name sites like Apple, Pandora, Treehouse, Mashable, Quora, Youtube, Asana, OKCupid, and more.
4. Web UI Patterns 2016: Volume 2
Web UI Patterns 2016: Volume 2 picks up where the first volume leaves off. Following the same catalogue format with description, tips, and examples from popular sites, this book expands into the categories of
- Layouts
- Content Presentation
- Multimedia Elements
- Data
- Scrolling
Here you’ll find 38 more patterns and examples from 142 top companies. Patterns, in general, save both you and your user a lot of time and hassle, so stay up-to-date with this year’s best.
5. UX Design Trends 2016
Along the lines of the other trend books, UX Design Trends 2016 explains the most useful trends of UX design. This book takes a fine-tooth comb through 6 essentials of modern UX designers:
- Designing out of the Silo
- Device Agnosticism
- Personalization
- Microinteractions
- Gamification (the right way)
- Empowering UX
The practice of UX design is a bit more involved than tips like “place this here,” so a book like this helps boil down the somewhat advanced concepts into easily digestible bits.
