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Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Circle.Com Library)
 
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Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Circle.Com Library) (Paperback)
by Steve Krug (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars 51 customer reviews (51 customer reviews)

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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Usability design is one of the most important though often least attractive tasks for a Web developer. In Don't Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humour and excellent to-the-point examples.

The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques and examples presented within it revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book's assumptions. For example, "We don't read pages--we scan them" and, "We don't figure out how things work--we muddle through". Getting to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces top-notch sites.

Using an attractive mix of full-colour screen shots, cute cartoons and diagrams, and informative sidebars, the book keeps your attention and drives home some crucial points. Much of the content is devoted to proper use of conventions and content layout, and the "before and after" examples are superb. Topics such as the wise use of rollovers and usability testing are covered using a consistently practical approach.

This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert's ability to judge Web design. You'll never form a first impression of a site in the same way again. --Stephen W Plain

Book Description
This handbook presents the principles that are important to keep in mind when evaluating site usability to enhance a visitor's experience. Based on exhaustive user research, this book will be the first such title to present conclusions drawn from real data rather than theory and upposition. Don't Make Me Think! will povide much-needed answers to perennially debated questions about the right way to design Web sites by focussing the debate on real usability issues rather than from design turf wars. It will boost the reader's "usability IQ" so they can detect usability problems in the sites they manage, design, build, or pay for.
Written in a conversational style, profusely illustrated, with powerful but clear down to earth explanations of easy-to-understand examples, Krug will cover such topics a how to think about usability, how to develop a sensibility for what works and what doesn't, how to perform usability testing on a shoe-string, getting designers and web developers to work together, and navigational guidelines.

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Customer Reviews
51 Reviews
5 star: 88%  (45)
4 star: 5%  (3)
3 star: 5%  (3)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great sections on navigation, home page design, usability, 25 Jun 2002
What makes this book valuable:
- in-depth treatment of navigation design. The sections on tabs and breadcrumbs are especially excellent;
- great section on effective home page design. Get this book along with Nielsen's "Homepage Usability", and you're set in this department.
- wonderful primer on usability testing. If your web team is small, this could be all you need to get started with informal user testing. My own experience supports Steve's: you don't have to have Ph.D. in human factors to facilitate fruitful usability tests;
- last, but not least, the book is very easy to read due to its witty tone, short paragraphs, and tons of bullets.
One thing this book could do better:
- make the headings more informative, saving the witticisms for the body copy. This would have made it a quicker at-a-glance reference.

Conclusion:
The book scores a perfect 10 with its target audience: the designers, developers, project managers, producers, marketers, and those who "sign the check". Just buy it.

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Short and effective, makes a powerful point, 27 Oct 2003
At last, an author who follows his own advice! This book is short and easy to read (at 200 pages, I read it in a day), but surprisingly deep. The book is peppered with colour screenshots, black and white cartoons and pithy quotes and headings. A pleasure, not a chore, to read.

The basic premise is simple; people don't like hard choices or stopping to think, they just want to get something done. The more self-evident a web site is, the easier it is to use. Implementing it, and being sure you've got it right, is tricky, though. Krug covers site and page layout, navigation design, usability testing on a shoestring as well as a broad and engaging model of how people really use the web.

It doesn't deal with internationalization at all, seems to assume a mostly static site, and offers no real help in getting your idea to the web in the first place, but will help you make good choices along the way. Well worth a read, and probably worth a refresher each time you start a new project to keep you on track.

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Simple, practical advice on web page design, 21 Jun 2001
By merja.ranta-aho@iki.fi (Helsinki, Finland) - See all my reviews
I liked vey much this book's approach to page design - the home page, designing navigation, "billboard design". The style of the book is entertaining and easy to read, andthe insights are important.

I, though, disagree with Krug's view on not having to use actual users; it seems that what he has in mind is the situation of having to find some very-expert users and he suggests to use any, not-that-expert users instead. While this MAY be sometimes a good choice, it definitely is a bad mistake to think that you can substitute the average beginner-user (to whom your site would be designed to) with the easily-available conmputer expert next door. In any case, you should consider the situation where your test user shows you that the site just does not work - it is too difficult. Hand at heart: do you believe him or do you think secretly, that your REAL users would survive the site?

Therefore, Id recommend this book for anyone as the SECOND web usability book, after the reader has gained some perspective on user testing elsewhere.

I've used the book as reference and material on some web usability design basic courses, and the feedback has been very positive: not just theories but an elegant model of the user at work and simple but powerful design guidelines.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Short and sweet
This book is definately not for usability experts. It is for everyone, it's short and sweet. If you want to know basics than go on, it is good! Read more
Published 1 month ago by Michal A Kunysz

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for any web designer/developer
Steve manages to pull off something that is usually overlooked when it comes to discussing web usability. Read more
Published 3 months ago by S. Clements-hawes

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
Having just "adopted" two company websites, I've been buying books to help me get to grips with it all. Read more
Published 3 months ago by M Jennings "Mr. Mark Jenni...

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelent Book
Great book! Very easy and simple to read. One of my first approaches to usability got me to this book. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Calamity Coiote

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for anyone involved in website production!
Since reading the first edition some years ago, I always refer to this book during usability presentations and recommend it to not only designers and developers, but also... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Sean Johnson