For the record, I don't consider myself an interaction designer. My day is mostly spent working with CSS, (X)HTML, JavaScript, and ActionScript. Because of this, I consider myself a client-side engineer. However, I'm often questioned about, or simply stuck with, the responsibilities of an interaction designer. Over the years, these situations have fostered the knowledge and hands-on experiences that most professional interaction designers should have.

Real, hands-on experience is difficult to come by, but knowledge is not. Knowledge is just out there, waiting for you to take it. And the fact is that the knowledge needed by most interaction designers is freely available to anyone with an Internet connection and the ability to read. If you have a few bucks or a library card, you can even read books on the topic. To be fair, this hasn't always been the case; applying the proven HCI and UI design methodologies of software development to the web has been a slow process. But I'm here to report that that time is over. Between the online resources and the amount of books being written on the topic today, an interaction designer designing for the web simply has no excuse for not being knowledgeable about what they do.

While I still maintain some interest in the topic, I'm ready to pass on the torch. I'm ready for those of you who consider yourself interaction designers for the web to be saturated in the information available to you. So here it is. Go and flood your head with the knowledge required of a professional interaction designer.

Books
No-questions-asked required reading for interaction designers and visual designers:
1. Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
2. About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
3. Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques
4. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
5. The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web

Good information, which you should read at some point in your career:
1. Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points
2. The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites
3. Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
4. Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning

I've yet to read, but on my list:
1. Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design
2. Analog In, Digital Out: Brendan Dawes on Interaction Design
3. Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design
4. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Edition

Old School, interesting, but nothing that will make or break you:
1. Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability
2. Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Websites
3. Making the Web Work: Designing Effective Web Applications
4. Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces
5. User-Centered Web Design (Paperback)

Blogs
1. http://looksgoodworkswell.blogspot.com
2. http://www.maadmob.net/donna/blog/
3. http://www.lukew.com/ff/
4. http://www.iathink.com/
5. http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/
6. http://www.eleganthack.com/blog
7. http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/

Online Resources for UI Design Patterns
1. http://designinginterfaces.com/
2. http://www.welie.com/
3. http://www.webdesignpractices.com/
4. http://www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/interface/index.html
5. http://iainstitute.org/tools/
6. http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elements_of_graphical_user_interfaces
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI_widget

Article Repository
1. http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles.asp
2. http://www.uie.com/articles/
3. http://www.cooper.com/insights/journal_of_design/articles/
4. http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/index.php

Online Publications
1. http://beta.ixda.org/
2. http://www.uxmatters.com/
3. http://www.boxesandarrows.com/
4. http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/