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Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
by Ron Arner
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Steve Krug. 2000. Berkeley: New Riders Publishing. [ISBN: 07897-2310-7. 195 pages. $35.00 (paperback).]
http://www.sensible.com
If you need to brush up on Web site usability over a weekend, then I highly recommend Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think!. This book had been recommended to me several times in the past, so when a co-worker offered to let me borrow his version, I was excited to read this Web design standard.
The book is a fairly quick and easy read, and is interspersed with humor and a plethora of examples of Websites that are designed well, but could still be better. There is no "bad-mouthing of poorly designed sites" in the book, because as Krug puts it, "Anyone who gets it even half right has my admiration."
Krug organizes his Web design tips into 11 chapters:
- Don't make me think!
Otherwise known as "Krug's First Law of Usability," this phrase speaks for itself. What a wonderul, common sense way to sum up the practice of making a Website as easy to use as possible.
- How we really use the Web
Krug points out that readers do not really read Websites, but scan them instead. This belief leads to Krug's next point.
- Billboard Design 101
In this chapter, Krug builds upon his point that people scan rather than read Websites, giving detailed instructions on how to design scannable sites.
- Animal, vegetable, or mineral?
Users like mindless choices, even if it takes many clicks to achieve these results.
- Omit needless words
If this rule sounds familiar to you, it should. Krug says the best advice he ever got in regards to writing for the Web came from E.B. White's The Elements of Style: Omit needless words.
- Street signs and Breadcrumbs
This chapter contains Krugs points on how to design navigation.
- The first step in recovery is admitting that the Home page is beyond your control
Krugs advice on designing a good homepage: designing a Home page inevitably involves compromise; the one thing you can't afford to lose in the shuffle is conveying the big picture.
- "The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends"
Krug feels that most Web design team arguments about usability are a waste of time, and gives some ways to avoid them.
- Usability testing on 10 cents a day
Krug is a proponent of usability testing, and also believes it should be kept simple; any testing is better than none at all.
- Usability tesing: The movie
(How to do your own usability testing.)
- On not throwing the baby out with the dishes
On how to interpret your usability testing results.
The nice thing about a book like Don't Make Me Think! is that it can be used by the beginning Web designer as well as the seasoned professional. Even an experienced Web designer needs to review the basics now and then, and Steve Krug's book is a quick and easy way to do that!
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