S. Krug. Don’t make me think! A common sense approach to web usability. 2nd ed. Book review_1

Guiding principles.

This book is written for the designers, the developers, the site producers, the project managers, the marketing people, and for “the one-man-band people who are doing it all themselves”.

The author hopes that “this book will help you build a better site and – if you can skip a few design arguments—maybe even get home in time for dinner once in a while”.

Chapter 1. Don’t make me think! Krug’s first law of usability.

The author says that he should be able to “get it”—what it is and how to use it—without expending any effort thinking about it. There are some things that make us think:

• marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names;
• links and buttons that aren’t obviously clickable;
• distractions (“Search” or “Quick search”?).

These things are provided with web sites examples.

Chapter 2. How we really use the Web. Scanning, satisficing, and muddling through.

The author points out that we scanning, satisficing, and muddling through a web site. Furthermore, he gives the reasons for it.

Chapter 3. Billboard design 101. Designing pages for scanning, not reading.

After answering the question “How we really use the Web?”, the author suggests five important things you can do to make sure the users see – and understand – as much of your site as possible:

• Create a clear visual hierarchy on each page
• Take advantage of conventions
• Break pages up into clearly defined areas
• Make it obvious what’s clickable
• Minimize noise.

Further, Steve Krug explains each of the cited features with the web sites examples.

Chapter 4. Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Why users like mindless choices.

This chapter is devoted to Krug’s second law of usability: “It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice”.

The author says that we face choices all the time on the Web and making the choices mindless is one of the main things that make a site easy to use. He provides the rule with examples (language choices: ‘English, US’ and ‘Español (English, Int’l)’ without ‘English, UK’).

Chapter 5. Omit needless words. The art of not writing for the Web.

This chapter is devoted to Krug’s third law of usability: “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left”.

The author cites E. B. White’s seventeenth rule in The Elements of Style: “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts”.

This rule is useful because:

• It reduces the noise level of the page.
• It makes the useful content more prominent.
• It makes the pages shorter, allowing users to see more of each page at a glance without scrolling.

Steve Krug supposes that happy talk and instructions must die and gives an explanations of realizing it.