Usability for Nerds/Recommended literature

McCormick, Ernest: Human factor in engineering and design. McGraw-Hill 1976.

Theoretical textbook about input/output devices, ergonomics, cognition, psychology.

Newman, W M & Lamming, M G. Interactive System Design. Addison-Wesley 1995.

Textbook with the main focus on user psychology and cognition, including user study, modeling user activity, and systems analysis.

Hoa Loranger and Jakob Nielsen: Prioritizing Web Usability. New Riders 2006.

Handbook for web designers.

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability Engineering. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers 1993.

Good textbook with the main focus on computer interfaces. Practically oriented and easy to read, though I would like to have more examples and illustrations.

Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. Doubleday 1988.

Entertaining book packed with examples of good and bad designs. This book can convince anybody about the importance of user-friendly designs.

Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, and Jenny Preece: Interaction Design. Beyond Human - Computer Interaction. Wiley 2011.

University-level textbook. Theoretical but easy to understand.

Dix, Alan, et. al. Human-Computer interaction. Pearson Education 2003.

Textbook with a mostly technical focus.

Raskin, Jef. The Humane Interface. New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems. Addison-Wesley 2000.

Theoretical book on human/computer interface and cognitive psychology with detailed discussion of commands, displays, cursors, icons, menus, etc.

Shneiderman, Ben, and Plaisant, Catherine. Designing the User Interface. Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. Fourth ed. Addison Wesley 2004.

Comprehensive university-level textbook on the design of human/computer interface.

Pearrow, Mark. Web site usability handbook. Charles River Media 2000.

Handbook for web designers.

Badre, Alberg N. Shaping Web Usability: Interaction design in context. Addison Wesley 2002.

Web design with focus on the social and cultural context.

This list is not completely up to date. You may search for newer literature.