Don't Make Me Think is arguably the seminal web design book. Its first edition was a series of UI design principles accompanied by an example of how Amazon does it. I know there have been revisions, and I'm assuming most of them are new examples to replace the Amazon ones. It was from a time when Amazon could fit their product categories on one row of tabs. Anyway, all of the design principles are based on removal of navigational barriers. It's a very good book and one I used a lot in my early days. My loss of love for it is based on the sense that it played a significant role in the rise of UX and standardisation of these techniques separate to the things they are applied to.

Hooked, on the other hand, is a step-by-step guide to making casino games disguised as useful apps. It's a shameful book and its popularity in the community is representative of the confused motives of UX practitioners.

Both worth reading if only to come back and argue with me about my views :)

Fair enough :)

Because workthings I’m in super literal mode all day and don’t tend to read tone/subtext by default