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

The book is short by design which makes it an easy read. In the words of the author, "you can read it on a flight." Although there are 12 chapters, most of them are fairly short, with only two chapters taking up more than 5 or 6 pages. The author writes with a style that is engaging and witty, which keeps you interested in the book. He starts out with a brief explanation of why he wrote a second edition and what has changed in this book compared to the first edition. Once he gets that out of the way, he dives right into "Krug's first law of usability" (hint: its the title). He talks about the way many sites implement the same type of features, and what makes one better over the other. Krug points out that there is a big difference between how most designers think users see their site, and how those users actually do see it. Designers tend to think that a visitor to their site will read through every single word on the page, taking in all this great copy and information that we spend so much time on. In reality, users scan pages rather than read them. They load a site and immediately begin looking for something that is close to what they think will let them complete the task they have in mind. After talking through these differences, Krug offers solutions to help a site cater more to the user that just scans. One thing that Krug does keep to a minimum is talk about the proper way to do this or the correct way to do that when building a site. What he does try to convey in this book are some guiding principles for better usability. He discusses proper navigation and sub-navigation techniques as well as arranging content so that it is clear what section of the site a user is in. The two chapters in the book that Krug commits the most time to covers what are probably two of the most important parts of any site: Navigation and the Home Page. He talks at length about navigation, specifically using the navigation to show a user where they currently are and where they have been. In both cases, real world sites are used to illustrate examples of good and bad navigation design. Krug also exalts the usefulness and importance of the breadcrumb. If you have been thinking of conducting usability testing, but wrote it off as a luxury that you or your client couldn't afford, Krug helps smash that myth. With as little as $300, you can run a simple usability test. He even goes as far as to provide details of how to set up the test and a script you can follow if you are unsure of exactly what to ask. All in all, this is a great book for web designers at any level. It helps put little nuggest of information in your head that you can pull out when designing and building a site to improve things as you build them. If you are new to usability, this book will help show you some simple solutions to common usability issues. The bottom line is that improving the usability of your site will improve your site overall, and this book offers the advice that will help you do that.

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

There aren't a lot of 'Oh wow!' moments in this book, but there is a lot of 'straight thinking'. The author provides clear and simple advice, with sound reasoning and good examples. A good book to help sort out the 'crazy thinking' from the sensible thinking. Although the example content of the book is perhaps quite dated now, the ideas and advice are timeless - keep pages simple, keep noise to a minimum and test, test and test some more! My favourite thing about this book is the personality of the author. It comes through in every paragraph and every side-story, I enjoyed his writing style so much I bought his other book on DIY usability testing. Honest and funny, time really did fly by reading it - a good starting point for usability and an example to other professionals who feel they have something to share with the software/eBusiness world

As an inexperienced web design student, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I was pleasantly surprised to find humorous, understandable explanations and tips for those new to web development. This book would also be relevant for experienced web designers as Krug presents timeless tips to improve usability and design for the users. The tips are timeless, but references to VHS might make you chuckle and realize how far technology has come even within the few years since the 2nd edition was published. Krug keeps the technology references to a minimum, so this book will continue to be relevant, even when those reading the book don’t know what a VHS looks like. The information was well organized in easy to digest sections. The book is short enough to keep your attention, but packed with helpful information from basic principles to designing for accessibility. Krug includes practical, real-life examples along with visual side-by-side comparisons to demonstrate his guidelines. I would recommend this book for any level of web designer/developer and anyone involved with a website (whether you fund, build, design, write for, market or even use a website). The principles discussed in the book can be translated to other forms of communication as well, so it would be helpful for anyone in a communications position. This book will be staying within reach at work as it is one that I will reference again and again.

Yes this book is quick and easy to read but it could have been condensed to 1/3 of its size if it dispensed with the chatty talk that added no value. I expected more "meat". I really enjoyed the section on user-testing because it echoed my experience. Having it echoed in a book gives it validation to show to clients. I think this book is way overrated. It is practical common sense and the target audience is for management and marketers who don't have any practical experience in this area.

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.

Steven Krug's Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition will make you rethink how you look at every web page you visit. This book was reading for my Internet Marketing college course and this was possible the most interesting read I have ever been assigned for college. The book is very short and there's a reason. Conciseness is a main theme of the book. It gets right to the point without forcing the reader to read anything unnecessary. He has very valid points about web page design and format. Not only are they valid but they should be the rules for any web designer. If you are a web designer, this book is a must. If you are a small business owner who wants their website to look and feel like a Fortune 500's, this book is a must. Anyone involved in web development needs to read this book! It is a quick and easy read that can make or break your website.

I am glad I bought this book even though it is expensive and even though I had to pay international shipping to get it. I am designing a site using WikiMedia and I got some beneficial information from Steve Krug. Don't cram too much info on your site. Don't make the user think too much. Keep it simple. Consider your website visitors to be similar to readers of billboards. They only have a few seconds to get the info you want them to get. When people visit your site they don't read every word or every sentence. They search for what is important to them and then they "click". Krug's book was helpful because he showed 'real live' sites and showed some of the minor problems with those sites, such as Verizon, Yahoo, Mojo, BizTravel, various bookstore sites, OrrinHatch.com, msnbc.com. Krug's book was VERY EASY AND VERY FUN to read. Minor problems: One page 64, Klug seems to imply that Arabic is read from left-to-right. It is not. It is read from right-to-left. Klug also recommended the following related books: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites, 3rd Edition Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping--Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions The Practice of Creativity: A Manual for Dynamic Group Problem-Solving Web Application Design Handbook: Best Practices for Web-Based Software (Interactive Technologies) Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points The Design of Everyday Things (and a few other books which are not currently for sale at the Amazon.com website. Please let us know if these reviews are helpful.

I've read that book few years ago (then sold it and finally bought it again) and it's a real must if you need to think about the user's experience when developing a web site (I mean, you HAVE to think about it if you're the designer/developer who's in charge of deciding the structure and look of it). The principles in this book are really important. It's small size make it easy to read and it's a lot more entertaining than other books like Jacob Neilson's Web Usability...

サイト全体の構成やナビゲーションの見せ方なども参考になりますが、この辺りならwebデザインをやっているうちに体得している範囲かもしれません。でも改めて読むと、サイトの見方や作るときの意識が変わります。 特に役に立ったのは、ユーザビリティーの章です。実際の被験者とのやりとりも台本のように事細かく書かれているので、これをじっくり読んでおけば、自分の作ったサイトをもとに、テストをする立場になってテストを行うことも出来るかと思います。 また、絵やチャートも多く、英語もさほど難しい表現は使ってないので、読みやすいと思います。筆者が言うよう「飛行機の長旅で1冊読み終えてしまう」感じのボリュームかと思います。

I'm sure the physical edition is fine, but DO NOT BUY THE KINDLE EDITION. The format is all messed up, it's basically unreadable.

excelente libro para tenerlo como cabecera y darle a nuestras páginas interés y ser amenas al visitante. Puntos y explicaciones que hacen reflexionar.

Ich bin zwar technisch bewandert, aber für mich ist dieses Buch mein erstes zum Thema Usability allgemein, deshalb kann ich nur aus der Sicht eines Einsteigers berichten. Das Buch überrascht mit lockerer Schreibweise und vielen anschaulichen Bildern, treffenden Commics und Beispielen. Inhaltlich waren zwei Themen besonders intressant: die Einblicke in die Art und Weise, wie Webseiten benutzt werden und besonders die Beispiele in denen gezeigt wird, wie man die Benutzbarkeit von Websites verbessern kann bzw. was man besser nicht machen sollte. Um Missverständnissen vorzubeugen: das Buch bzw. dessen Inhalt ist kein Rezept womit jegliche Usability-Hürde genommen wird, aber es ist ein guter Ratgeber mit allgemeinen Tipps und nachvollziehbaren Begründungen. "Don't Make Me Think!" ermöglicht einen differenzierten Blick auf die Dinge, die man sonst so selbstverständlich im Web benutzt. Fazit: Für Web Usability Einsteiger ist dieses Buch sehr zu empfehlen. Es lässt sich ohne sonderliche technische Kentnisse lesen und verstehen (sofern ich das beurteilen kann).