Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think

As Steve Krug puts it, users don’t read, they scan. That’s exactly what I did with this book. Along with that I also jotted down all the major points and came up with this ultra condensed 5-minute version of this highly acclaimed publication.

My notes do assume some prior knowledge of usability (just a little). So if you like what you are reading here, but eithe 1) is intrigued but don’t fully understand or 2) want to get more details, then go buy the book. It’s worth it.

Ch.1 Don’t Make Me Think

• Every question mark in user’s head adds cognitive load. Minimize these question marks by making everything on your page “self-evident”. Users should just get it.
• If self-evident is not possible, at least make it self-explanatory.

Ch.2 How We Really Use the Web

• We don’t read. We scan.
• We satisfice instead of making the optimal choices
  • I.e. Users take the first thing they find adequate and give it try. Worst case they’ll hit the Back button. The risk is low.

Ch.3 Design the site like a BILLBOARD

• Clear visual hierarchy
• Use conventions
• Break pages up to consumable chunks (chunking)
• Make it obvious what’s clickable
• Minimize noise (things that would distract users from what you want them to pay attention to)

Ch.4 Why Users Like Mindless Choices

• It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.
  • [Joseph]: I don’t think this applies to any productivity apps.
• Users like “muddling through”

Ch.5 Omit needless words

• Happy talk must die
• Instructions must die

Ch.6 Design Site Navigation

• Search or Browse?
• Get the taxonomy right.
  • This is especially important for “link-dominant” users
  • There are also search-dominant users.
• Web experience lacks the physical cues we have when navigating in real life (direction, scale…etc). Imagine a city without street signs. Therefore website should provide cues such as “breadcrumb”.
• Navbar should be persistent & present on almost every page
• Every page needs a name, and displays the name in the right place
• “You are here” dot. Let users know where they are in your maze.
• Tabs are great
• Web Nav Acid Test
  • What site is this?
  • What page am I on?
  • What are the major sections of this site?
  • What are my options at this level?
  • Where am I?
  • How can I Search?

Ch.7 Design the Home Page

• Essential
  • Site identity & tagline (purpose, what is this site for?)
  • Site hierarchy
  • Search
• Pulldown is no good for things that…
  • Users are not familiar with
  • Not alphabetically known
  • Or a list that’s simply too long

Ch.8 Making Decisions

• The antidote for religious debates = testing
  • You need to build some version of the thing and test it out.
  • There is no substitute for it.

Ch.9 Usability Testing

• Focus groups aren’t usability tests
• Do small tests (3-4 users) frequently (instead of big test infrequently)
  • Amount of findings diminishes with big N
  • Product teams can’t fix that many issues at once anyways
  • Debrief on the same day
• In many cases you can just recruit anyone with reasonable computer experience
• Review the result right away
• Don’t throw a new design out right away due to negative result. Many times a minor adjustment will make a big difference.
• Spend time to test one morning a month is all it takes.

Ch. 10 UX Goodwill

• Think of “Goodwill” as a metric. It goes up and down as users go through your site. If it drops too low, they will leave.

Ch. 11 Accessibility

• First, fix the usability problems that confuse everyone, not just the disabled.
• Thou shall read an article titled “Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites” by Mary Theofanos and Janice Redish.

Ha, let me guess what you are doing now. Are you staring at my blog and spotting things that don’t follow the rules mentioned above?

Well, some of them are actually by-design, meaning I don’t completely agree with Krug and I make things the way they are intentioanlly. However, the majority of my usability bugs are left active because of time constraint.

I could spend 10 hours customizing my WordPress template, or I can spend time writing more useful posts for you. I chose the later :)