[azharcs]

All these books are great but they are theoretical in their approach. It's good to be knowledgeable about Golden Ration or Fitts Law but it wouldn't be of immediate help on your next project. The books for Hackers should be pragmatic in their approach and not very theoretical.

The books I recommend are: Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams. It focuses on topics like Consistency, Alignment, Proximity, and Contrast. With these four rules, you can make 90% of your designs look good. It also explains briefly on what colors and typography to use. When you've firm grasp of the fundamentals, it would make sense to arm yourself with more theory.

Don't make me Think by Steve Krug. It teaches you to simplify and focus on the end-user.

[earnubs]

"All these books are great but they are theoretical in their approach."

You've never read them then, as they all use real world examples. Don Norman's has 3 Mile Island for example.

"It's good to be knowledgeable about Golden Ration or Fitts Law but it wouldn't be of immediate help on your next project."

The Golden Ratio is one ratio, there are many. Some more, some less, aesthetically pleasing. Fitt's Law is basically about the metrics of completing any action involving your hand and a target, say a button or a link.

Consider an HTML pag with no graphical embellishments beyond a white body colour and a dark gray text colour, the proportions and spacing allocated to each bit of content will decide if people find it beautiful or not, and the ease with which they can interact with buttons and links will decide if they find it usable.

[saint-loup]

Actually, Universal Principles of Design is a somewhat misleading title. I was excepting a book deeply theory-driven, with few principles derived from even fewer concepts, but it turned out to be a compilation of 210 notions loosely categorized. It contains the topics you suggested, and many more. I think his purpose was pragmatic, but I'm not sure it suceeded.

Indeed, statements like "four rules cover 90% of design", as you said, are both theoretical and practical: they strive to simplify and unify a conceptual landscape, which in turns helps you in your work, because you don't have to remember and apply many vague heuristics.

Of course, whether a true and satisfying theory of design exists, is another matter.

EDIT: Awful spelling.

[tripzilch]

Trick question: why is it good to know about the Golden Ratio?

[kami8845]

Trick question: why is it bad to preface trick questions by "trick question:"?