Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition 2nd Edition

by Steve Krug (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0321344755

ISBN-10: 9780321344755

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Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (3rd Edition) (Voices That Matter)
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Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design. With these three new chapters:

Usability as common courtesy -- Why people really leave Web sites
Web Accessibility, CSS, and you -- Making sites usable and accessible
Help! My boss wants me to ______. -- Surviving executive design whims

"I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don't Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book.

In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book." -- Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steve Krug is a usability consultant who has more than 15 years of experience as a user advocate for companies like Apple, Netscape, AOL, Lexus, and others. Based in part on the success of the first edition ofDont Make Me Think, he has become a highly sought-after speaker on usability design.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0321344758
Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Riders Pub; 2nd edition (August 26, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 201 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780321344755
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321344755
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.04 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #56,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #25 in User Experience & Website Usability
- #263 in Internet & Social Media
- #372 in Computer Science (Books)

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Top reviews from the United States

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Dog's Boy on the Sunny Southern OR Coast

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2014

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My review concerns the 2002 2nd edition. There is a much more recent 3rd edition (which is also much more expensive). I believe there is great value in either. And I would heartily recommend this book.

The author is a consultant making his living evaluating others' web sites. He approaches evaluation from the standpoint of the user seeking to fulfill user needs. The quintessential marketing approach.

The book steps us thru the mindset needed to focus, foremost, on the user's experience and the user's goals in accessing a web site. The title of the book refers understanding users' well enough so that a web site is written to be essentially self-evident -- thus avoiding forcing to THINK about what the web site wants or expects. What is expected is just...obvious.

He steps thru many of the means that web sites use to provide such an experience, focusing heavily on effective site design & navigation. He also strongly recommend reducing verbiage by 75% as a rule.

All in all, I found his focus on the user & his attention to a site's navigational structure to be very useful. Thru his experience, he is able to provide both positive & negative examples of these and other points thruout the book.

This is one author that I sense I trust his judgment and enjoy his writing style. As one measure of that, I've already purchased a few of the books he highly recommended in his "Recommended Reading" section. Those, too, appear to be excellent books written from the same place with the user in the center.

6 people found this helpful

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Holly

Stay focused on the customer.

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2015

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If you've ever tried searching for something only to get results for something totally different, you know how frustrating it can be. This book helps business owners and marketers think like consumers. It helps you keep focus on the customer--a fundamental rule when you write. The easier you make it for a consumer, the more likely s/he will find you. The book suggests using consumer words rather than technically accurate words. It's all about keeping common sense in the forefront of your mind when you're creating or updating your website.

It's a refreshing reminder of staying focused on the reader.

6 people found this helpful

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Paula Schuler

Compact book, easy read, no wasted words

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2020

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This is a great quick read little volume. I'm amazed at how compact the content is, without missing important stuff. I plan to make a checklist for my content using this book's tips and pointers. I work on communications and a website with other UX professionals, and I notice it is really easy to forget all the fantastic principles and advice the writer shares in this book. A checklist will be helpful.

One person found this helpful

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Neville Samuels

An easy, conversational guide to Web development and usability

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2013

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People don't have time to waste when they're browsing through the web. And don't make them think, either.

Steve Krug's book is all about taking a common sense approach to web development, especially usability. He wrote that there's no such thing as an average user, everyone is different. So, as you can imagine, developing great websites that appeal to most people is almost like climbing Mt Everest wearing sneakers. It's a lot harder than it looks.

Mr. Krug has created an easy to read, conversational guide on what usually works in attracting visitors to a website, and to keep them returning. He points out some of the pitfalls, like how everyone wants to get their finger in the pie of the Home page, to the point where it could become bloated and useless.

Heard of 'Street Signs' and 'Breadcrumbs'? You will when you get to the part about making sure visitors know where they are and where they're going on a website. As much as people hate getting lost in a shopping mall, the same is true on the web.

There's also a substantive section on usability testing. How important it is, but also how it's not necessary to go overboard with it as well.

While it doesn't take long to get through this book, which happens to include useful illustrations and cartoons, you do learn a lot of things in this bestseller.

One person found this helpful

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M. Swinney

Simple. Concise. Web Guru. Makes you think.

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2007

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Steve Krug's, "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability," is as good as any web page design and development management book around. It's style is based on the principles Krug lays forth of simplicity, minimize textual content, and don't tax people's already overloaded brains. The way the book was designed, thus, has Krug practicing what he preaches, at all of our benefit.

I have been in a position in corporate America to manage a corporate web site since December of 2006. After some precursory research on my favorite little book store: Amazon, I came up with Krug's web usabilty book on favorite listmania after favorite listmania. "Don't Make Me Think," made it on the top list for web designers, web page project managers, business owners, and average Joes and Jill like you and me. So I wanted to start my professional reading with a book that had some common collective wisdom behind it. Lo and behold, I was not disappointed.

Krug's book is probably best read through practice. I have already spouted off several of his principles at our weekly web page project meetings and I can tell folks are looking at me a little different these days. It could be because I'm going through my mid-life crisis and started wearing a goatee and using all this metero hair product, but I don't think that's the reason alone. I suspect it's because I scanned Krug's cartoons and sent them out to the members of our working group and executive council. I love the frame that has the project manager getting caught up in a web page design "religious debate," between a creative designer and a practical programmer with a thought bubble over her head saying, "I hate my life." Funny stuff. You'll have to read this book and sit through one of the web page design meetings to see its true truth and wisdom.

Though I've learned if you try to enact some of Krug's principles like having navigation tabs similar to those found on Amazon, you just may start some religious debates of your own. The book has a little something for everyone. For the web page design and management neophytes like myself, it has to be one of the best introductions to the ins and outs of what really works on web sites for engaging Internet users in such a way that keeps them coming back for more. For seasoned professionals in the industry, Krug's book will no doubt cause you to be challenged in your thinking, wrestle with how to gain control back from your overly-busy home page, and what can now be done with all that text you were stuffing your overly boring corporate site that no one really bothers to read.

For me the book started to drag with the two sections of web site testing. But, we recently stood up a new functionality feature that was in sore need of troubleshooting testing before pushing it live. Believe it or not, designers and ad agency managers don't catch very many mistakes before letting their clients view the page. So I found myself referring back to Krug's book to see how best to approach testing. As it turned out our work team, and some family members, caught the majority of the mistakes and folks were very happy with the final product. Another thing to watch out for is that Krug is giving advice based on what works best for the user of web page sites. Some of his advice is contrary to what I've experienced in my professional life in regards to search engine optimization. Krug says to cut out extraneous and unneeded text which is all fine and good for your web page readers, but will not get your page optimized (when a person types in keywords to yahoo or google...your page hitting the top of the search results list). So, just watch for that if you are more interested in people finding your web site vs. having an optimally pleasant experience once they get there.

So, Steve Krug is my new best friend and has helped me keep my job for another month. I think if you pick up a copy of, "Don't Make Me Think," you will be thinking Krug is your best friend too, with his egregious wit and practical knowledge of what works and doesn't on Internet web sites. He even does a minor overhaul of Amazon's site. You won't want to miss it. ...mmw

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Jennifers Daddy

Common sense. Why dont more web developers read it?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2008

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Everything this book says is just common sense. When designing websites, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that people will actually be using your published work! How many times have you been to a site only to think "where's the search box" or when entering some details into your online bank account and then press the "enter key" it doesn't login, it goes off to a "apply for a new savings account". Very confusing. In these circumstances, your brain has to think about what has happened, leaving a negative impression in your mind. Not good if you're trying to sell something!

When it comes to the web, first impressions count. Take Amazons new redesign for 2008. Amazon gets quite a lot of coverage in the book as an example of good design, so it's interesting that they have gone away from their old design, that's been around for about a decade. I don't like the new look, because every time I use it I have to think whereas before it was intuitive. That's the whole point of "dont make me think". You should never have to think about how to use a web site. If you need to use your brain to do something simple, the designer has FAILED.

"Dont make me think" is a quick and easy read. It's quite small at 200 pages. It's often reduced on Amazon so keep an eye out for a bargain.

Highly recommended for all developers, even if you don't often do user interfaces. The advice can be applied to all interfaces and not just the web.

4 people found this helpful

Janet Austen

Yeah!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 1, 2010

Verified Purchase

This is the best book on the subject that I have ever read. It points out the very kinds of usability issues that I, as someone who has worked in this area of business, has tried and failed to make developers understand.

It makes a very simple point - by designing a web user interface that is logical, simple, clear, intuitive, helpful and robust, people will find them easier to use, have fewer problems, will need less documentation/help, will come back, and will have a positive view of you and your products.

It is so full of logic and startling truth, I found myself yelling "yeah!" a few times at what it had to say. To put it another way, if you think that it's focus on the obvious is, well, all too obvious for you to have not already noticed, then think again!

If there is one book I would impore developers to read (no matter what software they develop) it would be this. It should be mandatory reading.

2 people found this helpful

Enrico

this book is amazing. If everybody read it once

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2017

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I firstly read it at the university and now I bought it.
Despite of the old version of the book, this book is amazing. If everybody read it once, sucking powerpoint presentation, unwatchable websites and unusable objects would disappear from earth!

2 people found this helpful

Stu Hill

Guidance for Web design and update

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

Recommend this book even though it has been updated since. Still relevant (April 2020)
Good points and easy to follow guidance for anyone creating or updating a website.

Went from front to back in less than 3 hours - lots of bright diagrams and examples.

A. M. Mckenzie

It's an essential book, but ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 11, 2008

Verified Purchase

There's no point is adding my voice to the many other positive reviews here. It's a complete no-brainer that any one involved in web site build or maintentance - be they designer, developer or business stakeholder - should read and digest this book, not just once but on a regular basis.

BUT ... is there anyone else who has found their copy of DON'T MAKE ME THINK has fallen apart within a few weeks of moderate daily use? Shouldn't a book like this be built to withstand the regular handling that the content deserves?

Or is just that I'm heavy-handed?

AM, London