Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

by Steve Krug

Overview

Hundreds of thousands of Web designers and developers have relied on web usability expert Steve Krug's guide to help them understand the principles of intuitive navigation and information design. Witty, commonsensical, and eminently practical, it’s one of the best-loved and most recommended books on the subject.

• Fresh perspectives and examples
• New chapter on mobile usability
• Still short, profusely illustrated...and best of all—fun to read

If you've read it before, you'll rediscover what made Don't Make Me Think so essential to Web designers and developers around the world. If you've never read it, you'll see why so many people have said it should be required reading for anyone working on websites.

"After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book."

—Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780321965516
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	12/24/2013
Series:	Voices That Matter
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Steve Krug (pronounced "kroog") is best known as the author of Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, now in its second edition with over 350,000 copies in print. Ten years later, he finally gathered enough energy to write another one: the usability testing handbook Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems. The books were based on the 20+ years he's spent as a usability consultant for a wide variety of clients like Apple, Bloomberg.com, Lexus.com, NPR, the International Monetary Fund, and many others.

His consulting firm, Advanced Common Sense ("just me and a few well-placed mirrors") is based in Chestnut Hill, MA. Steve currently spends most of his time teaching usability workshops, consulting, and watching old episodes of Law and Order.

Table of Contents

Preface About this edition vi

Introduction Read me first 2

Throat clearing and disclaimers

Guiding Principles

Chapter 1 Don't make me think! 10

Krug's First Law of Usability

Chapter 2 How we really use the Web 20

Scanning, satisficing, and muddling through

Chapter 3 Billboard Design 101 28

Designing for scanning, not reading

Chapter 4 Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral? 42

Why users like mindless choices

Chapter 5 Omit needless words 48

The art of not writing for the Web

Things You Need to Get Right

Chapter 6 Street signs and Breadcrumbs 54

Designing navigation

Chapter 7 The Big Bang Theory of Web Design 84

The importance of getting people off on the right foot

Making Sure You Got Them Right

Chapter 8 "The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends" 102

Why most arguments about usability are a waste of time, and how to avoid them

Chapter 9 Usability testing on 10 cents a day 110

Keeping testing simple-so you do enough of it

Larger Concerns and Outside Influences

Chapter 10 Mobile: It's not just a city in Alabama anymore 142

Welcome to the 21st Century.

You may experience a slight sense of vertigo

Chapter 11 Usability as common courtesy 164

Why your Web site should be a mensch

Chapter 12 Accessibility and you 172

Just when you think you're done, a cat floats by with buttered toast strapped to its back

Chapter 13 Guide for the perplexed 182

Making usability happen where you live

Acknowledgments 192

Index 196