Resources
Talks
A great talk from Jeff Stewart, outlining his thoughts on workflow, and giving some very concrete and actionable takeaways that you can directly use in your tools.
Workflow Guidelines from Vicarious Visions
Workflow Driven Tools Design
A great talk from Vesa Paakkanen, showing how they think about workflow at Remedy in Finland. I really appreciate how much they show off their own tools.
What I Learned About Tools Development From Games Industry Legends
David Lightbown interviewed a lot of games industry legends, and in this talk he discusses what he learned from them. Old knowledge is applicable in modern times.
Books
The classic! A book written by David Lightbown, and as far as I know the one specific book about the tool UX of game development tools. The title is very on the nose!
A classic published in 2000, and still relevant today! No matter what version you buy, the information of it will still apply to current day workflows and software.
How do your users think when looking at some initially? Does that thought change they more they think about it? This book will help out both you, and them.
Celia Hodent wrote a great book on UX for games in general. While it does not cover tools UX specifically, there is a lot here that is good to keep in mind.
This book will show you how different countries, cultures, societies, and human beings need different designs. It covers examples in fantastic and quick detail.
How different countries, cultures, societies, and human beings act? In what ways do they tend to do that? This book has great graphs to explain that to you.
Who is your average user? What do they do, on average? Which average user are you serving? Are these even good questions to ask? This book can help.