About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design

This book is a very thorough guide on the art and philosophy of interaction/application design. It has many useful precepts suchas "never ask the user for permission" (Vista!) and challenges the veracity of even the most basic computer truisms like saving documents. (at what point in the work process don't you want your work preserved?) It contains stuff that I've claimed as "My" precepts -- the Maace Postulate for example ("Visual design is based on visual patterns).

This book is nested comfortably between Tufte and Ogilvy -- it is relevant to the current state of the industry, but it also contains useful "Take away" theory and is immensely readable.