Carrying on with the theme of quizzing our new authors, today we're finding out more about Joe Leech, author of one of our latest Pocket Guide titles: Psychology for Designers. Read on to discover how Joe came to be interested in psychology, what you can learn from his book, and whether or not his first attempts to apply a little psychology to daily life worked...

Tell us about yourself.

Hello, I'm @mrjoe but you can call me Joe. I'm User Experience Director at cxpartners, a design consultancy based in Bristol, UK. My work takes me around the world and I'm lucky to work with smart companies like Marriott, Disney and theTrainline.

What first attracted you to psychology?

My mother! That is a little Freudian I know, but my mum started studying psychology when I was in my teens. She recently retired from a career as an Educational Psychologist. There were always lots of psychology books laying around at home. The one I remember and still have was called 'How to read a person like a book'.

I remember trying to apply the psychology to read what my friends were thinking and worse how a particular girl felt towards me. It was so embarrassing as I kept getting it wrong! My first application of psychological theory.

I then studied Neuroscience and for a MSc in Human Communication and Computing.

What inspired you to write this book?

My dad is a retired architect and when I was growing up would talk about how to design for people and it's always something I've been very passionate about.

I wanted to write a book that would give a good grounding in psychology and how to practically apply it to ensure the design is focused on the needs, emotions and context of the person using it.

What can readers expect to learn from Psychology for Designers?

I wanted from the start to make the book as practical and useful as possible. I give an overview of the different types of psychology and how they can be used by designers to be either an inspiration for a design or how to fix problems within a design.

Designers have a design problem to solve and I want to give them the tools and the process to find a psychological theory that will address that problem. I spend much of my time advocating design using psychology theory and I wanted to pass those skills on.

The book is very much a companion to the many books that list psychology theories relevant to designers.

What's next for you this year?

It's a busy year for me. I'm speaking at Future of Web Design in London and FFWd in Croatia. I'll also be running workshops on the themes from the book (watch this space!).

In my day job I'm excited to be working on the design for the upcoming Marriott Homepage and helping Disney EMEA roll out responsive design.

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Psychology for Designers is available from our store for £2, or as part of Collection One for just £6.