Open Sources Resources

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 2nd edition (August 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321344758
• ISBN-13: 978-0321344755
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Editorial Reviews
  Amazon.com
  Usability design is one of the most important–yet often least attractive–tasks for a Web developer. In Don’t Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humor and excellent, to-the-point examples. The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques, and examples presented revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book’s assumptions, such as “We don’t read pages–we scan them” and “We don’t figure out how things work–we muddle through.” Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites.

  Using an attractive mix of full-color screen shots, cute cartoons and diagrams, and informative sidebars, the book keeps your attention and drives home some crucial points. Much of the content is devoted to proper use of conventions and content layout, and the “before and after” examples are superb. Topics such as the wise use of rollovers and usability testing are covered using a consistently practical approach.

  This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple of evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert’s ability to judge Web design. You’ll never form a first impression of a site in the same way again. –Stephen W. Plain

  Topics covered:

• User patterns
• Designing for scanning
• Wise use of copy
• Navigation design
• Home page layout
• Usability testing

–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description
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.

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

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/