# The Design of Design by Fred Brooks

3 Hacker News commenters recommended The Design of Design by Fred Brooks and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for an unusually dense collection of quotable aphorisms on nearly every page.

## Why people recommend it

- Dense with quotable aphorisms (1 comments): "notable for having an almost impossible density of quotable aphorisms on every page" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327962))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman](https://hackerapproved.com/p/design-of-everyday-things.md): 29 recommend
- [Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger](https://hackerapproved.com/p/refactoring-ui.md): 14 recommend
- [Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug](https://hackerapproved.com/p/don-t-make-me-think.md): 12 recommend
- [Practical Typography by Matthew Butterick](https://hackerapproved.com/p/practical-typography.md): 10 recommend
- [A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander](https://hackerapproved.com/p/a-pattern-language.md): 9 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201362988?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780201362985) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Design of Design by Fred Brooks", https://hackerapproved.com/p/design-of-design/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).