Book Review. Don t Make Me Think. A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition) Publisher: New Riders Press, Price: $25.20 (Amazon.

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Book Review. Don t Make Me Think. A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition) Publisher: New Riders Press, Price: $25.20 (Amazon."

Kelly Hoover
6 years ago
Views:

1 Book Review Don t Make Me Think Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition) Publisher: New Riders Press, 2005 Price: $25.20 (Amazon.com) IST 413 Usability Engineering Bill Stevenson April 16th, 2007 Written by: Jim Scarola 1

2 About the Author Writing computer manuals for over a decade, Steve Krug transitioned into usability testing and interface design in He wanted to fix problems instead of just explaining them. Over the years, he s evaluated and improved interfaces for a diverse range of clients, including AOL, Netscape, BarnesandNoble.com, and Lexus.com. Krug owns his own consulting firm, named Advanced Common Sense in Chestnut Hill, MA. He enjoys spending his time reviewing designs for new and existing sites, conducting workshops, and consulting clients on their interface problems. This is the only book he has written. 1 Overview Steve Krug s Don t Make Me Think A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability has the ability to change the way people think about web design. By offering readers a practical, hands-on approach, Krug takes the guesswork out of building sites that are both efficient and effective. While the book provides valuable advice for professional web designers and developers, its content is equally valuable for anybody with a stake in creating user-friendly web pages (managers, marketers, etc.). The book itself can be organized into three sections. First, Krug discuses some common misconceptions about how people surf the web, revealing what users truly need from a website. Secondly, the majority of the book provides realistic methods for optimizing a site s design based on common user behavior. The last section focuses on usability testing, and its importance in building websites. (1) How people truly use the web, and what they need from a website Chapter 1 Don t make me think! Krug s first law of usability When people ask him, What s the most important thing I should do if I want to make sure my web site is easy to use? Krug invariably answers, Don t make me think! He explains that websites need to be self-evident, obvious, and self-explanatory. Through effective design, they need to tell users what the site has to offer, where to start, and how to find what they re looking for. Krug points out several common design errors that make users think. For example, obscure naming conventions make them guess what a label means or where a button goes. A button named Jobs is simple, yet meaningful. One named Employment Opportunities is less direct. However, trying to be clever by naming a button Job-o-Rama is confusing, indirect, and distracting. Buttons or links with poor affordance also make users think. By making the user guess if they re clickable or not, they end up getting frustrated and wasting time. Chapter 2 How we really use the Web While many people design sites thinking that users will spend the necessary time to read and digest most of its content, Krug explains that this couldn t be further from the truth. The typical user in fact doesn t read; they glance at new pages and scan text. He likens this to passing a billboard on the highway at 60 MPH. Why do we do this? People are in a hurry. He also argues that there is not 1 2

3 much of a penalty for guessing wrong on the web. In other words, if a user clicks incorrectly, the back button makes satisficing (choosing the first reasonable option) an effective strategy. (2) Optimizing a site s design based on common user behavior Chapter 3 Billboard Design 101 So, knowing how people use websites, what should designers do? Krug answers, build billboards. He talks about five strategies to do so: (1) Create a clear visual hierarchy to convey prominence and relatedness; (2) Use conventions to exploit the meanings already attributed to them (external consistency); (3) Break up pages into clearly defined areas so the user can decide which areas to focus on and which they can ignore; (4) Make it obvious what s clickable so users can distinguish the links at a glance; (5) Limit noise to reduce complexity and distractions. Chapter 4 Animal, vegetable or mineral Why users like mindless choices This short chapter points out that users don t mind a lot of clicks as long as each click is painless and they have continued confidence that they re on the right track. In other words, it s not so much how many times a user must click, but rather how much thought goes into each click that really determines how easy a site is to navigate. Chapter 5 Omit needless words Krug argues that many web pages use far too many words. Rather than serving a purpose, they usually just take up space because nobody is ever going to read them. He recommends that designers should get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what s left. Cutting text, in Krug s experience, lowers the page s noise level, makes useful content more prominent, and makes pages shorter to reduce scrolling. A common example of unnecessary text is happy talk, or the introductory text that welcomes us to a site. Another is lengthy, cumbersome instructions that expect users to read wordy text in order to understand how to complete a task. Chapter 6 Street signs and breadcrumbs While Krug likens a web page s navigation to the signage in a brick and mortar store, he is quick to point out some major differences. Web pages are in a virtual space, and therefore have no sense of scale, direction, or location. In order to compensate, Krug suggests using a variety of design techniques. Proper labeling of a site s pages, according to Krug, is very important. Include a site id (usually the company or organization s graphical logo) on every page on the site, letting the user know this is where I am. Each page should also get a page name, defining the page s unique purpose. Krug also gives recommendations for setting up the page s navigation, saying to divide the site s main sections into logical groupings. These groupings, or the site s primary navigation, should be persistent across all pages. He discusses how tabs are one of the best ways to handle primary navigation, as they provide a strong mental model that most users immediately recognize. He champions the use of breadcrumbs because they give the user a good indication of their location in the site s hierarchy. (You are here: Home > Hobbies > Book Collecting > Welcome) 3

4 Chapter 7 Designing the home page As its title suggests, this section is dedicated to providing design advice for the home page. Krug talks about how, more than any other page, groups in a company or organization fight over how the home page s real estate should be utilized. He says to refrain from trying to give every element a voice, but rather to give prominence to only a select set of elements. Krug also emphasizes the importance of conveying the big picture by making sure the following questions are answered: (1) What is this? (2) What can I do here? (3) What do they have here? (4) Why should I be here and not somewhere else? He advises the use of a tagline (a pitchy phrase that characterizes the site) to answer these questions. A good tagline, he says, is personal, lively, and sometimes clever. Chapter 8 Why most web design team arguments about usability are a waste of time and how to avoid them While the previous chapter touched on balancing competing employees agendas in respect to the homepage, this chapter expands this concept to the usability of the entire site. Krug explains his observation that one contributor often advocates one design strategy, while others argue for their own. People s opinions tend to be motivated by their own conclusions about what users like and dislike. Besides wasting time, he says, these arguments create tension and erode respect among team members, and can often prevent the team from making critical decisions. Krug recommends putting aside these generalizations, and instead ask usability questions that are project-specific. Rather than asking, Do most people like pull-down menus? ask Does this pulldown, with these items and this wording in this context on this page create a good experience for most people who are likely to use this site? (3) Usability testing and its importance in building websites Chapter 9 Usability testing on 10 cents a day Shifting to the actual process of testing usability, the book emphasizes a general strategy test early and often. It talks about how designers should start testing right away, and can even test comparable sites before design work is even started. It talks about continuing to test regularly throughout the project s lifecycle in an iterative fashion. Also, Krug says, always pick individual usability testing sessions over focus groups to determine how users really interact with the site. The chapter discusses how many designers believe that usability testing must be a complicated, elaborate, and expensive task. Not the case. Krug discusses how the process can be simple and cheap. He proposes using three to four people per iteration, not getting so caught up in recruiting representative samples, using relatively inexpensive screen capture and video recording equipment, and conducting testing in a typical office or conference room. At the chapter s conclusion, a sample test session scenario/script is given. Chapter 10 Usability as common courtesy Here, Krug explains a concept known as the Reservoir of Goodwill. This idea captures how users typically enter a site with a positive attitude, or a full reservoir. As the user navigates the site, certain experiences affect his/her reservoir either positively or negatively. Out of date, or difficult 4

5 to find information, for example, depletes the reservoir. Saving the user steps or anticipating questions replenishes the reservoir. If the user s reservoir becomes empty, he/she generally leaves. Chapter 11 Accessibility, Cascading Style Sheets, and you According to this chapter, there are five things designers can do right now to improve their sites usability: (1) Fix the problems that confuse everyone by noting common troubles; (2) Regularly read articles related to usability in order to enhance your knowledge; (3) Read a book to learn more; (4) Start using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to gain greater control over formatting, consistency among browsers, and simplicity in development; (5) Go for the low-hanging fruit by fixing the easiest things first. Chapter 12 Help! My boss wants me to. Krug concludes the book, saying he often receives letters from usability professionals whose bosses insist that they make, in their opinion, bad usability choices. Over the last few pages, he includes some sample (sometimes humorous) letters he s sent to the boss in response. Take-Aways Don t Make Me Think sends a clear and powerful message to those in charge of creating web pages: Make your site as effortless as possible. Create self-explanatory designs. Know that users are in a hurry. Don t write a novel, design billboards. Harness the power of accepted conventions. Make usability decisions based on the situation at hand, rather than preconceived notions. Conduct usability tests early and often. Continue learning more about usability. Impressions/Recommendation After thinking about my overall impressions of the book, I couldn t really come up with any weaknesses. Fittingly, even the book itself is very usable and easy to read, and Krug s frequent use of visual examples effectively emphasis his points. It provides practical, actionable advice to anybody who wants to improve the usability of their site and, for that, I highly recommend it. I have no doubt that I will use its advice in my future career. 5

Design of Look and Feel of Websites

Design of Look and Feel of Websites Steve Krug Steve Krug is a usability consultant who has more than 20 years of experience as a user advocate for companies like Apple, Netscape, AOL, Lexus, and others.