Design in General

Anything by Donald A. Norman is good. Try these:

• Norman, D. A. (1990). The design of everyday things. New York: Doubleday.
• Norman, D. A. (1992). Turn signals are the facial expressions of automobiles. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Norman, D. A. (1993). Things that make us smart. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

For that matter, he is part of the Nielsen Norman Group at http://www.nngroup.com/ and all of the principles are worth reading.

Design and Computer Programming

Books that I found particularly useful:

• Design & Memory. By Peter H. Huyck and Nellie W. Kremenak. New York, NY., McGraw Hill, 1980.
• Patterns of Software. By Richard P. Gabriel. New York, NY., Oxford University Press, 1996
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. By Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman. Cambridge, MA., MIT Press, 1985.

Best of All

• Design for the Real World. By Victor Papanek. New York, NY., Bantam Books, 1973.
• The Art of Computer Programming. By Donald E. Knuth. Reading, MA., Addison–Wesley, 1997.

hsm