Customer Reviews

Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

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The "show me" what you mean book of web usability review. I particularly like the common sense handling of the main web problems.

Some of the key things that are pointed out in this book are:

1. Don't make me think: Basically the web user does not want to venture into a site that requires them to figure it out. It should be self-evident. How do we use web pages:

a. We don't read pages, we scan them

b. We don't make optimal choices, we satisfice

c. We don't figure out, how things work, we muddle through

2. It doesn't matter how many times I click as long as each click is a mindless unambiguous choice

3. Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left.

The first 5 chapters clearly illustrate the three "Krug's Laws of Usability" listed above with lots of pictures and examples. Well done.

His chapters on navigation and finding your way around are a cookbook on how to do it right. He finishes the chapters with several examples, first asking the reader to look at the examples and then discusses how he feels it should be redone. Excellent teaching tool. Similarly, he broaches the topic of the Home page and how it should be structured and the various forces pulling in different directions. The examples he gives at the end here too are a good teaching tool.

The remainder of the book discusses the design processes and the usability tests. These are excellent chapters in the forces at work and it is evident, he has done this many times from the information he has gathered.

He provides specific suggestions for web usability testing for various stages of sites as well as for various problems. This is wonderful guidance if you are new at this. He also provides a guideline on scripting and report writing. Nice job.

He winds up the book with recommended reading and also providing a website for readers of this book: http://www.circle.com/krugbook/

A practical Web design usability guide, "Don't Make Me Think!" is based on empirical observation not exhaustive statistics. Steve Krug's five years of usability consulting and testing are distilled down to this thin yet gem-filled how-to. Krug observed how people actually use the Web rather than how we *think* they use it, gleaning key usability guidelines. Most folks can't afford a full-blown usability consult, but they can afford to buy a $35 book. This book shows you how to conduct your own usability tests on the cheap. What follows is a summary of the book's major rules and observations:

1. Don't Make Me Think!

The number one usability rule, most often expresed by users. Web pages should be self-evident, obvious, and self-explanatory. Buttons should have short text and look clickable. The default search for your site should be simple.

2. Design for scanning not reading

By observing users Krug found that people glance, scan some text, and click on the first reasonable option (called "satisficing"). People scan Web pages, they don't read them. We don't make optimal choices, we satisfice.

Here are some things you can do to make sure users understand as much of your site as possible:

a. Create a clear visual hierarchy to show relative importance of content (H1/H2 etc.)
b. Take advantage of conventions
c. Break pages up into clearly defined areas
d. Make it obvious what's clickable
e. Minimize noise

3. Users like mindless choices

Make each click an unambiguous orthogonal alternative.

4. Omit needless words

Get rid of half of the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left. This is especially important on home pages and
gateway pages.

5. Navigation: Use street signs and breadcrumbs

Factoid: The back button accounts for 30 to 40 percent of all Web clicks. Persistent navigation appears on every page of the site and should include the following five elements:

a. Site ID
b. A way home
c. Search
d. Sections
e. Utilities

Your navigation should answer these questions:

a. What site is this?
b. What page am I on?
c. What are the major sections of this site?
d. What are my options at this level?
e. Where am my in the scheme of things?
f. How can I search?

6. Your home page should convey the big picture

What is the site about? Use a good short tag line and welcome blurb. Rotate site promotions. Remove everything nonessential.

7. Most Web design usability arguments are waste of time

These "religious debates" consist of people expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can't be proven. All Web users are unique. There are no average users. There are no simple "right" answers for most Web design questions. What works is good integrated design that fills a need, that's carefully thought out, well executed, and tested.

The antidote for religious debate is to ask specific questions and test with real users. The last three chapters of the book show how to perform testing on the cheap with three or four users. I really enjoyed this book, especially Krug's easy humor. From WebReference.com.

This book walks it's talk. It is written and arranged exactly as a useable web site should be, clear and concise, with scannable (as well as enjoyable) text. The clean attractive design and graphics accurately and efficiently illustrate the text, which is easy to read and to understand. I love the use of cartoon people with thought balloons to suggest how people think while using a web site.

There is no clutter of technical gibberish or endless verbose rambling on statistics. The chapter on usability testing takes us step by step through the process and is descriptive and instructional instead of theoretical. Steve Krug doesn't feel he has to sacrifice creativity, visual interest, individuality, or effective advertising in order to develop a usable web site. "Good tag lines are personable, lively, and sometimes clever. Clever is good, but only if the cleverness helps convey - not obscure - the message."

I can't agree with those who dismiss this book as nothing but common sense. While I see nothing wrong with publishing a reference and instructional manual that is full of common sense, this book also presents the reasoning behind every method that is suggested. The clashes between designers, programmers, and advertisers are explored and addressed. While I agree that the simple and obvious conclusion is that the focus should be on the user, it is refreshing and helpful to find a book which distills information from all of the varied and opposing developer viewpoints, and applies to them to that end. The book is, after all, subtitled "A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability." Also, like most common sense, it isn't really so obvious until after someone has pointed it out to you.

Here are a few things you won't find in this book, which makes it all the more effective and convincing. You won't find anything that claims this is the "right" way to design web sites. There will be no discussion of business models or predictions for the future of the web. The best omission of all is that there is no bad mouthing of poorly designed sites. According to Steve Krug "Designing, building, and maintaining a great web site isn't easy. It's like golf: a handful of ways to get the ball in the hole, a million ways not to. Anyone who gets it half right has my admiration."

This book gets it more than half right.

As a web designer that owns my own domain, I had purchased Jakob Nielsens Wed Design Usability book and loved it. I thought nothing could top it, but then I was in a book store and picked Don't Make Me Think up. It had some high-power reviews of the book on that back cover. When I opened this book up, I understood why. This book talks about Web Design as and ways to understand why a site needs to be design to the specific user the designer has in mind.

Highly respect design expert Roger Black writes the forward. I remember buying a book of his years ago called Websites That Work. While a beautiful book, it was before its time and lacking what Krug has written into this book. I'd recommend this to anyone who has purchased Nielsen's book. It refreshing that there is actually credible suggestion out there.

"Don't Make Me Think" is incredibly clear, concise, and helpful - as well as surprisingly enjoyable. Every web designer or developer should read it and take its message to heart. I develop web sites at an e-business solutions provider, and these are the kind of issues I tackle every day. I am reading three industry-related books and ten industry-related magazines on any given day, and I managed to make it through this book in lightning speed. Kudos to author and editors for creating such an easy-to-swallow dose of usability advice, and for adding excellent sprinkles on top in the form of good-natured humor throughout and a resource section at the end.

Web design is a young field, and because of that, many people who design web sites today have no formal training in web or interface design. A background in print design or technology is a great start, but not sufficient when it comes to creating a usable web site. It is crucial to take usability into account when creating a site that you want people to interact with - ESPECIALLY when you want people to buy something from your site.

This book provides a terrific outline of usability issues, as well as a look into usability testing, in a very accessible and encouraging manner. Anyone involved in designing or developing web sites can benefit from it. Especially if you have never conducted a usability test and don't realize how average people (ie, non-web-savvies) interact with a web site - this book will open your eyes to some vital information which will help you create better, more usable sites.

"Don't Make Me Think" is an excellent book for those designing web sites. It's a great title, and a great motto for designing any type of technology, not just web sites. Krug calls it "thinking" when you have to stop focusing on your task to figure out the web site, even if only for a few milliseconds.

The book is very well written in an engaging, informal style that feels more like a conversation than a lecture (not easy for a book that is essentially preaching). The layout is wonderful and follows its own advice. Each page is designed to make one good point, and the gazillions of images are simple, clear, and effective in supporting the points. Although a lot shorter (by design) than Jakob Nielsen's "Designing Web Usability," I found it provided a lot more specific, on-target advice -- both per pound and overall. Whereas Nielsen focuses mainly on page design and site design, Krug handles these as well as interaction design, which is missing from Nielsen's book. It has some good examples that you are encouraged to work through before looking at "the answers." It's a good technique. He also has a terrific section that lays out exactly how you conduct a usability test, from greeting the person to interpreting their behavior.

Sure, there's a lot more to learn about good web design and about usability testing, and probably some people will object that he doesn't do justice to the complexity of these professions. But I think this book does a great job of pointing you in the right direction with a lot of good, solid advice and some encouragement. It's short enough that you're inclined to read the whole thing, and compelling enough that it might really affect your designs.

The first thing I thought when considering whether to purchase this book was, "Wow. Could it really be worth ... in soft-cover?" Did I buy it? Well, sure--otherwise I wouldn't be writing this review. And the thing that made me finally decide to purchase the book was the title, "Don't Make Me Think." In a world that values simplicity and ease of use, those are words to live by.

Designers looking for some real nuts and bolts technical information probably won't get much from this book. Actually, tech talk is not what it's about. "Don't Make Me Think" is a friendly, accessible treatise on the principles of Web usability--how to keep users at your site longer by giving them the most uncomplicated experience possible. Will it tell you how to implement your latest Flash creation? Nah. But it will help you discover ways to make your site more "user friendly," and usability is an important issue in building a site that attracts--and most of all, KEEPS--visitors.

I got two chapters into this book and my head was already churning with ways to make my site easier to use and understand, and therefore more "sticky." By chapter three, I'd begun a total redesign of my website, and continued working until 3 a.m. (My advice? Don't read this book unless you're willing to stay up late.) A month later, when all was said and done, I had built a better site and my stats showed that instead of the average 6 pages viewed per visit I had been experiencing previously, the site was now averaging double that with 12. All in all, not bad results for a ... investment.

"Don't Make Me Think" does wander off on a few tangents that have more to do with design and less to do with usability or the psychology behind what makes visitors keep on clickin', and the fact that it wanders from its chosen topic makes it slightly less useful. Still, if finding ways to improve your website visitor's experience is one of your goals, you'll enjoy "Don't Make Me Think."

Jakob Nielsen: Impossible to remember how to spell his name. Steve Krug: Easy to remember.

Nielsen: Usability in a thousand words or more. Krug: Usability in catch phrases and cute graphics.

Nielsen: Great for quotes in bloated business presentations on why usability testing is important. Krug: Great for 'I get it, it all makes so much sense to me now' type reading.

Nielsen: Testing, testing, testing! Krug: "Don't make me think! If you have room in your head for only one usability rule, make this the one."

Nielsen: 432 pages, mostly text. Krug: 194 pages, lots of inline graphics.

Nielsen: Loves Sun (not the star). Krug: Loves Amazon (not the jungle).

Nielsen: Usability Guru writes books for future Gurus who have lots of time to read. Krug: "little known but highly respected usability consultant" writes books for people with little room in their brain and "short enough for you to read on a long plane ride."

Thank you for reading my highly subjective and probably wildly inaccurate comparison. I whole-heartedly reccomend this book to anyone concerned with usability

I tend to like books that present a single argument that's not necessarily revolutionary, but "sums it up" so well that you can easily apply the knowledge time and again. This book does that. I reccomend it to everyone at my job, especially new designers.

I think Nielsen's great too. I own Designing Web Usability and refer to it all the time, however this book presented things in a simple straightforward way that's easy to get, so for the layman this book is perfect. For the professional, get both. Nielsen's book will certainly give you a lot more ammo for writing a report on why usability is important to your company.

Also read: The Design of Everyday Things, Joel on Software, Information Architecture (the O'Reilly book).

I've been a usability engineer/information architect for 8 years and have read many books on both GUI and web design. I'm sorry to report that this book was disappointing. It took me only a few hours to breeze through and I came away with very little that was new to me and with the perception that this book was light on substance. Perhaps this is because I have been in this field for so long. However, I just finished reading Jeff Johnson's "GUI Bloopers" and, even after designing GUIs for so many years, I learned so much from Jeff's book. If you are new to this field, Krug's book will help but make sure to read "Designing Web Usability" by Nielsen, "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web" by Rosenfeld and Morville, "Designing Large Scale Web Sites" by Sano, and "Web Navigation" by Jennifer Fleming. I also recommend Johnson's book on GUI design. So many GUI Design Principles are directly applicable to good web site design.

Don't Make Me Think is like an operator's license for web site building software. An internet developer shouldn't be allowed to "turn the key" until they've digested this book.

Steve Krug's book is a quick read (190 pages) filled with insightful, entertaining and practical prose for those involved in internet development. He shows us what does and doesn't work, and then explains why. His extensive research into usability permeates every page.

The book itself is a stellar example of usability. Every graphic adds value and every paragraph amplifies the point. Color is effectively used, but not exclusively. Steve practices the techniques that he preaches. For example, the chapter called Omit needless words [The art of not writing for the web] is only 5 pages long.

Finally, he presents practical ways to perform usability testing (huh, what's that?) into the development process. Imagine knowing how user's will actually use your site.

I recommend this book to everyone involved in internet development. I've even assigned it to my children (ages 10 and 13) as they start their journey into internet development.