Resources
Books and articles I recommend reading.
Writing
- This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, Steve Almond
- Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
- Corn Maze, Pam Houston
- Several Short Sentences About Writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg
- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott
- Writing to Change the World, Mary Pipher
- The Writer’s Notebook, Craft Essays from Tin House
- Poynter on Writing
Interface Writing
- On Writing Interfaces Well, Jonas Downey
- Copywriting is Interface Design, Jason Fried
- Questions I Ask When Reviewing a Design, Jason Fried
- User Onboarding, Samuel Hulick
- Shorthand for Designing UI Flows, Ryan Singer
- Training the CMS, Eileen Web
- 5 Rules for Writing Great Interface Copy, John Zeratsky
Editing
- The Copyeditor’s Handbook, Amy Einsohn
- The Elements of Editing, Arthur Plotnik
- The Subversive Copy Editor, Carol Fisher Saller
Content Strategy
- Fire Drills: Communication Strategy in a Crises, Mandy Brown
- Free Content Strategy for Free, Tiffani Jones Brown
- Wearing the Content Strategy Pants, Tiffani Jones Brown
- Testing Content, Angela Colter
- Infrequently Asked Questions of FAQs, R. Stephen Gracey
- The Elements of Content Strategy, Erin Kissane
- Content Templates to the Rescue, Erin Kissane
- Your About Page is a Robot, Erin Kissane
Design Education
- Avoiding Bullshit Personas, Bolt|Peters
- How to Make Sense of Any Mess, Abby Covert
- The Shape of Design, Frank Chimero
- Designing in the Borderlands, Frank Chimero
- This is What I Have Learned, Milton Glaser
- The Chairs are Where the People Go, Sheila Heti and Mischa Glouberman
- Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit, Corita Kent and Jan Steward
- Not Knowing, Austin Kleon
- 10 Timeframes, Paul Ford
- Don’t Go Back to School, Kio Stark
- Research Practice, Gregg Bernstein
- Research Questions from Nicely Said
- Trustworthy, Margot Bloomstein
Freelance Life
- Designing Case Studies, Senongo Akpem
- Working for Yourself, Stephen Fishman, J.D.
- Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon
- Show Your Work, Austin Kleon
- Design is a Job, Mike Monteiro
- You’re My Favorite Client, Mike Monteiro
Style Guides
- 18F’s Content Guide
- Conscious Style Guide
- Disability Language Style Guide
- Diversity Style Guide
- Economist Style Guide
- GLAAD Media Reference Guide
- GOV.UK Style Guide
- MailChimp Content Style Guide
- MailChimp Voice and Tone Guide
- Plain Language Action and Information Network
- Guide to Understanding Non-binary People
- USAGov Bilingual Style Guide
Tools and Word Nerdery
- Wordnik
- Title Capitalization Tool
- Google Trends for finding search keywords
- Optimizely or Google Analytics for content testing
- Treejack for navigation testing