“Don’t Make Me Think” is unlike any book I have ever read. Grant it, I have not read volumes and volumes on Web usability, but needless to say I did enjoy Steve Krug’s unembellished straight-forwardness. Krug writes so lucidly, it is almost like a little voice whispers “duh” in your ear when you are reading. Because Krug is able to explain such intricate ideas in layman’s terms, “Don’t Make Me Think” is a go-to book for Web site builders, and frankly, it will become one of my go-to books as well.
Designing Web sites is difficult, but designing Web sites that people can easily comprehend, use, and come back to is even harder. Krug makes it possible for these designers to come back to reality and truly understand what makes people happy when their surfing the Web. Even though I am not a Web designer myself, I can understand how one could get so sucked into their work that they become desensitized to what a user can do or wants to do when on a Web page.
Krug compares searching for something you want on a Web site like searching for a power tool at a department store. Except that the Web experience offers the user no sense of direction, scale, or location. Krug says that compared to shopping at a physical store, when you are on a Web site you “click on ‘Power Tools’ and you’re suddenly teleported to the Power tools aisle with no traversal of space, no glancing at things along the way.” This is just an example of his style of writing, which both is entertaining and commonsensical.
Truthfully, I feel like I already knew all of the information Krug presents in his book. He provides such common sense tips that I would think most people are already aware of. For example, he gives tips like: use visual hierarchy, the less words the better, and make obvious what is clickable. To me these pointers are plainly straightforward, so I felt like I was not learning much in these particular sections or chapters. However, I think this is one of the beauties of Krug’s writing, because most of the time the reader already understands, the concept is only reinforced and drilled into your head.
Krug compares searching for something you want on a Web site like searching for a power tool at a department store. Except that the Web experience offers the user no sense of direction, scale, or location. Krug says that compared to shopping at a physical store, when you are on a Web site you “click on ‘Power Tools’ and you’re suddenly teleported to the Power tools aisle with no traversal of space, no glancing at things along the way.” This is just an example of his style of writing, which both is entertaining and commonsensical.
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Reading Krug's "Don't Make Me Think". |
Nonetheless, it is still important to understand how all of these commonsense concepts play into the usability of a Web site. I never realized how often I get frustrated and annoyed by unfriendly Web sites. For every extra second that a user has to spend figuring out how to work a company’s site, customers, and essentially money, are lost. Simply put, if it is not navigable it is not useful.
Although I doubt my career will lead me into directly programming Web sites, there is no doubt I will be using and managing the World Wide Web. The power of the Internet is still remarkable to me, and it will only grow in power and force, so I believe it is crucial to keep in mind Krug’s guidelines.
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