| Author | Steve Krug |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Web and Mobile Usability |
| Published | 2014 New Riders Press |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 216 |
| ISBN | 978-0-321-96551-6 |
Don't Make Me Think (third edition) is written by Steve Krug, it is about human computer interaction, web usability, and mobile app usability. The book's premise is that a good software program or web site should let users accomplish their intended tasks as easily and directly as possible. Krug pointed out that people are good at satisfying, or taking the first available solution to their problem, so the design should take advantage of this. He frequently cited good and bad examples of interactions from different websites and the real-world to further prove his concepts throughout the book.
The book itself is intended to be an example of concision (brevity) and well-focused writing. The goal, according to the book's introduction, was to make a text that could be read by an executive on a two-hour airplane flight.
About this third edition, Krug made some changes compared to the last two. He added three more chapters. The reasons why he updated to the third edition are that the last two editions are outdated in the internet world and the way people use the Internet and computers have changed a lot as well.
About the Author
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Steve Krug is a professional in the user experience field who is based in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He has two books published: one is "Don't Make Me Think" and the other is "Rocket Surgery Made Easy". Krug provides consulting services for Web usability and organizes workshops on teaching usability as well.
Publication
edit"Don't Make Me Think" was originally published in 2000, revised in 2005 and 2014, and sold more than 450,000 copies in 20 languages.
In 2010, the author Steve Krug published a sequel, "Rocket Surgery Made Easy", which explains how anyone working on a web site, mobile app, or desktop software can do their own usability testing to ensure that what they are building will be usable.
Summary
editUsability
editIn chapter 1 the concept "Don't make me think" basically requires a website or any other products self-evident or at least self-explanatory. One thing that can measure this requirement is when a user looks at a web page, he/she should not make the effort to understand the page, as far as the task is humanly possible. Things that forces people think can be buttons that are obviously non-clickable or names that seem technical and unfamiliar to the user.
Chapter 2 introduces a fact that users don't read every single content on the page, they scan them instead. When they use the website, they come with a mission to get their things done quickly. Every extra content may cause distraction to the users, and stop them from getting to the point they want to go directly. Based on this, the book concludes that the users don't make optimal choice, they choose whatever the one that satisfies them first. In chapter 3 the author mentions that formatting can help the users to scan and the page should have effective visual hierarchies. Chapter 5 encourages people be bold to cut off needless words to make the content concise. In chapter 4, the author used "Animal, Vegetable or Mineral" to interpret the concept of mindless choice.
Speaking of usability testing, chapter 9 introduces Do-it-yourself usability testing, which is much simpler and cost-saving usability test. The development team should invite as much stakeholders as possible to observe the test, and write down their top three spotted issues. In chapter 11, the author mentions users enter the website with a “reservoir of goodwill”, and he elaborates things that may increase and diminish goodwill.
Navigation
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Chapter 6 focuses on introducing how to make the users navigate a website in a consistent and simple way, without any confusions. Using persistent navigation (or global navigation) on every page gives the user instant feedback in real-time about the current status. It is better to use site ID or link instead if persistent navigation causes distraction on pages such as filling out forms, registering, subscribing, giving feedback...etc. Then the author also introduces primary navigation which are links to the main resources of the site, with display of secondary navigation sometimes. Breadcrumbs can show the users pathway from the home page to where the user currently at, also using tabs can be effective on becoming self-evident with a good visual catching.
To test the effectiveness of a website's navigation, the trunk test focuses on whether the important items (like site ID, pages's name, location indicator...) can be easily identified.
Chapter 7 introduces some key elements on designing a homepage. Good home page can directly tell the user what's the website about, what does it have, what can the user do with it, and why should the user be here. Using tagline can characterize the website and show the user why it is great for them. At last, the author want people to heed the promotions overloading issues on the homepage.
Teamwork
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The endless discussion or argument on the question such as “Do people like pull-down menu?” in a Web team is useless, time-consuming, and it can create tensions among the team members. This kind of issues introduced in chapter 8 is common thing in a development team. Additionally, the members in a team under different titles (such as upper management, marketing, business development, and designer) have different focuses, which make the development process more complex. The author mentions the only solution to such debate is testing, with a focus of questions about what works or doesn't work instead of right or wrong.
Mobile
editDue to limited space on the mobile screens, instead of designing a website with full features, the design should first focus on functions and contents that are most essential and important to the users. In chapter 10, the author talks about the application of delight, learnability, and memorability on mobile apps. For delight, it is hard to define what exactly it is, but it mainly involves giving users the opportunity to do things they love and be able to do. Learnability is about whether the app is easy to learn, and memorability is about whether the user will remember how to use the app for next time after he/she figured out how to use it.
Accessibility
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Chapter 12 brings up the issue that people who build the thing (both designers and the developers) are responsible to create accessible products. The author gives one example that works best to complement this concept, which is imagining blind people who have access to the internet now can read almost every single newspaper or article on their own. Both designers and developers have two fears upon learning more about accessibility. First of all, it requires more work; secondly, it causes compromised design.
References
editKrug, Steve (2014). Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. Amazon (3rd ed.). New Riders. ISBN 978-0-321-96551-6.
External links
edit- Book description on author's website, www.stevekrug.com
Category:Human–computer interaction Category:User experience Category:Usability Category:Web design Category:Mobile design