Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really don’t remember when was the last time I read a book in a day. The author himself suggest that this is a book for one longer flight. It’s true. I would absolutely agree.

I had borrowed a copy of a book from a college at my work few years ago. I have to say second edition was worth buying. Everybody involved in creating web pages and other user interfaces should gain a lot by only reading this book.

What have I learned? Web pages should be at least self-explanatory if not already self-evident. I agree still in 2010, that there are plenty of web users who still type a site entire URL in the Google search box (or as author claims in Yahoo’s). In designing web page one should think like designing great billboards. You should make it obvious what is clickable. There is no smart answer to the dilemma wide versus deep site hierarchies. And yes, web navigation better be good. Author is a fan of tabs. Interesting. Usually the interface problem is just a reflection of deeper and harder to solve dilemma. The mission of an organization online is not the same as its (corpo)brand mission offline. All Web use is basically idiosyncratic.

To design a web page one should think like designing a great billboard.

One of the things I liked the most was the proposal of the Lost-our-lease testing. I surely hope that at my company we are going to try it out very soon. One funny thing I am going to remember is that FAQs are not QWWPWA (Questions we wish people would ask). And interesting to know, in USA there is a Section 508 of the 1988 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act, specifying accessibility standards for IT (and therefore web pages too).

Other books/articles that author recommends and I have to put it on my to read list is from:

• Gary Klein: Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions and from Mary Theofanos, and
• Janice Redish: Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work with Screen Readers.

I did, actually learned some other details too but this should be enough for you to decide whether to read this book.

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Tags: Design thinking, Our bookshelf, User experience

This entry was posted on Friday, October 22nd, 2010 at 00:30 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.