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- ISBN13: 9780321344755
- Condition: New
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Product Description
Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design.
Three New Chapters!
- Usability as common courtesy -- Why people really leave Web sites
- Web Accessibility, CSS, and you -- Making sites usable and accessible
- Help! My boss wants me to ______. -- Surviving executive design whims
"I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don't Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. 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.
In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book." -- Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards
Review
Usability design is one of the most important--yet often least attractive--tasks for a Web developer. In Don't Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humor 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 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, such as "We don't read pages--we scan them" and "We don't figure out how things work--we muddle through." Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites. Using an attractive mix of full-color 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 of 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 Topics covered: - User patterns
- Designing for scanning
- Wise use of copy
- Navigation design
- Home page layout
- Usability testing
Customer Review:A3JAERGWAQK138
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Summary: Makes you think
If you ever wanted to reach into your computer screen and throttle the jerk who made that annoying website, the author does it for you. Very helpful in thinking about the design of my websites.
I still find testing hard to implement and suspect others will too. But for general principles, this book nails it.
Customer Review:ARUDPIIVPAXCO
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Summary: "Already a Classic" - Many in my industry reference this book. I give it to new clients all the time.
This book does an excellent job explaining the fine science and art of good website usability.
Even my experienced usability and design people say they learned something new in this book. Beyond learning new stuff, one of the best things about this book is that it gives us a new way to explain website usability to people. The many pictures help.
I give this to clients all the time. It's good for everyone from CEO's to in-house dev people.
Customer Review:A3PXH074UV57SP
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Summary: GREAT Book
Well, I think that this book openned my mind on usability issues. Primary because as a developer, I used to think that "normal" users needed to know better to use the web but after this reading I realized that it was me that needed to acquire the ability to understand users, because I was the weird one...
Great job Steve!
Customer Review:A3Q4A3IA7CKDP5
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Summary: Excellent advice, doesn't take itself too seriously
Superb advice on the design of any website, whether public-facing e-commerce site or internal-facing intranet site. It's a quick read that is written with humor and a light touch. The final section on usability testing, with guidlines and sample script, I think is especially valuable (because so often neglected). Krug makes these concepts seem achievable and within reach.
Customer Review:A58U23MYCR4M0
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Summary: Must have book for any serious web designer
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.
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