Making Things Special

If you're looking for an insightful perspective on the practice of user experience design, or software design, look no further. 

Make Things Special, by Hillel Cooperman and Jenny Lam, is a different kind of book. Each chapter provides a concise and dead-on take of topics ranging from Branding UX to Hiring a Designer. You'll finish this book with deeper sense of what it means to craft great digital products.

Table of Contents:

• Ch. 1 The Day Bill Gates Called Me Rude — and Other Lessons in User Experience.
• Ch. 2 Software versus Content — The Lines Have Blurred
• Ch. 3 Past is Prologue — What We Can Learn from Cars 
• Ch. 4 Software is Both Art and Craft
• Ch. 5 A Very Short (and Incomplete) History of Software User Experiences
• Ch. 6 Usability is the New Minimum Bar
• Ch. 7 Branding User Experience
• Ch. 8 The Dark Art of Defining Success in User Experience Design
• Ch. 9 On Luck
• Ch. 10 What it Means To Be a User Experience Designer
• Ch. 11 Why Does Silicon Valley Want Designers That Can Code? Because the Valley Doesn’t Understand What Designers Do
• Ch. 12 Designer vs. Engineer — The Curse of Low Expectations
• Ch. 13 Designer vs. Marketer — A Partnership Opportunity
• Ch. 14 Designer vs. Product Manager — The Turf Battle
• Ch. 15 Why We Won’t Hire People Who Want to be the “User Advocate” on the Development Team.
• Ch. 16 Put the Designer in Charge
• Ch. 17 How to Hire a Designer
• Ch. 18 I Can’t Find a True User Experience Design Leader for My Company. What Do I Do Next?
• Ch. 19 Turning Yourself Into a User Experience Design Leader
• Ch. 20 Destroying Your Enemies Through the Magic of Design