Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition 2nd Edition

by Steve Krug (Author)

716 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0321344755

ISBN-10: 9780321344755

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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. With these 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

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steve Krug is a usability consultant who has more than 15 years of experience as a user advocate for companies like Apple, Netscape, AOL, Lexus, and others. Based in part on the success of the first edition ofDont Make Me Think, he has become a highly sought-after speaker on usability design.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0321344758
Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Riders Pub; 2nd edition (August 26, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 201 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780321344755
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321344755
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.04 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #238,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #111 in User Experience & Website Usability
- #988 in Internet & Social Media
- #1,857 in Computer Science (Books)

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716 ratings

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Steve Krug

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Steve Krug is a usability consultant who has more than 30 years of experience as a user advocate for companies like Apple, Netscape, AOL, Lexus, and others. Based in part on the success of his first book, Don't Make Me Think, he has become a highly sought-after speaker on usability design.

Customer reviews

5 star		68%
4 star		20%
3 star		9%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Dog's Boy on the Sunny Southern OR Coast

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2014

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My review concerns the 2002 2nd edition. There is a much more recent 3rd edition (which is also much more expensive). I believe there is great value in either. And I would heartily recommend this book.

The author is a consultant making his living evaluating others' web sites. He approaches evaluation from the standpoint of the user seeking to fulfill user needs. The quintessential marketing approach.

The book steps us thru the mindset needed to focus, foremost, on the user's experience and the user's goals in accessing a web site. The title of the book refers understanding users' well enough so that a web site is written to be essentially self-evident -- thus avoiding forcing to THINK about what the web site wants or expects. What is expected is just...obvious.

He steps thru many of the means that web sites use to provide such an experience, focusing heavily on effective site design & navigation. He also strongly recommend reducing verbiage by 75% as a rule.

All in all, I found his focus on the user & his attention to a site's navigational structure to be very useful. Thru his experience, he is able to provide both positive & negative examples of these and other points thruout the book.

This is one author that I sense I trust his judgment and enjoy his writing style. As one measure of that, I've already purchased a few of the books he highly recommended in his "Recommended Reading" section. Those, too, appear to be excellent books written from the same place with the user in the center.

8 people found this helpful

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Paula Schuler

Compact book, easy read, no wasted words

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2020

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This is a great quick read little volume. I'm amazed at how compact the content is, without missing important stuff. I plan to make a checklist for my content using this book's tips and pointers. I work on communications and a website with other UX professionals, and I notice it is really easy to forget all the fantastic principles and advice the writer shares in this book. A checklist will be helpful.

One person found this helpful

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Neville Samuels

An easy, conversational guide to Web development and usability

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2013

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People don't have time to waste when they're browsing through the web. And don't make them think, either.

Steve Krug's book is all about taking a common sense approach to web development, especially usability. He wrote that there's no such thing as an average user, everyone is different. So, as you can imagine, developing great websites that appeal to most people is almost like climbing Mt Everest wearing sneakers. It's a lot harder than it looks.

Mr. Krug has created an easy to read, conversational guide on what usually works in attracting visitors to a website, and to keep them returning. He points out some of the pitfalls, like how everyone wants to get their finger in the pie of the Home page, to the point where it could become bloated and useless.

Heard of 'Street Signs' and 'Breadcrumbs'? You will when you get to the part about making sure visitors know where they are and where they're going on a website. As much as people hate getting lost in a shopping mall, the same is true on the web.

There's also a substantive section on usability testing. How important it is, but also how it's not necessary to go overboard with it as well.

While it doesn't take long to get through this book, which happens to include useful illustrations and cartoons, you do learn a lot of things in this bestseller.

One person found this helpful

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from missprint.wordpress.com

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2008

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Nowadays, most students are faced with the world of HTML and computer science at some point in their academic careers. For me, the first time was in CIS 101 in college. (Yes, there was a second time. It turns out grad school does not assume computer literacy). Although it isn't always part of the formal curriculum, usability is always an underlying theme in technology classes even if it is just a question of whether the HTML textbook is actually written in gibberish or not. Usability is also one of the few fields where anyone, even the computer illiterate, can be an expert.

The idea behind usability is simple: Look at a given design and see how accessible it is for users. Anyone can have an opinion on usability and everyone can provide input. All it takes is a clear head and the patience to look at what works (or doesn't) and why. If you use it, you have information about its usability. To get back to the subjects of Computer Science and technology, usability has lately been applied to the world of Web design.

Usability consultant Steve Krug lays out all of the basics about Web usability in his book Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability currently in its second edition, published in 2006 after the first edition sold nearly 100,000 copies.

As far as titles go, there are few that offer as clear a picture of the book's content as this one. Krug's main point throughout his 185-page guide is that good Web sites don't make users think. Unlike college, Krug posits that using a conventional website should not be an intellectual exercise. It should be simple, it should be neat, and it should be self-evident. In other words, if a user cannot identify the site's purpose, and where to start on said site, just by viewing the homepage something has gone horribly wrong.

Krug details how to fix such problems and how to avoid them with usability tests. That may sound self-serving save for the fact that Krug also explains how to conduct usability tests on the cheap without the benefit of a usability consultant such as himself.

Written in short chapters packed with illustrations, this book is designed to be approachable and easy to read. Krug is serious about Web usability, but that in no way means his book is stodgy or dry. Examples of usability at work are littered with cartoons and the text maintains a sense of humor. My favorite chapter title (and subtitle) "Usability as common courtesy: Why your Web site should be a mensch" might offer some idea of what tone to expect from this book.

Of course, taking a computer class to meet a core requirement in college doesn't always lead to work in the field of Web design in fact most of the time it leads to an entirely different career. But, in today's technology-driven culture, doesn't everything come back to the Internet eventually?

It might just be working as an intern at an online magazine, or a starting position where duties include entering data into online spreadsheets, or it might just be writing your own blog on a site like WordPress or Blogger. Wherever your path leads, knowing something about Web usability and how good Web sites get that way can only help. As more and more information moves to cyberspace, with websites being created and updated all the time, it's important to be prepared by knowing how to analyze not only the information found online but also how it is presented. Don't Make Me Think is one tool that can assist Web users in that preparation.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Jennifers Daddy

Common sense. Why dont more web developers read it?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2008

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Everything this book says is just common sense. When designing websites, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that people will actually be using your published work! How many times have you been to a site only to think "where's the search box" or when entering some details into your online bank account and then press the "enter key" it doesn't login, it goes off to a "apply for a new savings account". Very confusing. In these circumstances, your brain has to think about what has happened, leaving a negative impression in your mind. Not good if you're trying to sell something!

When it comes to the web, first impressions count. Take Amazons new redesign for 2008. Amazon gets quite a lot of coverage in the book as an example of good design, so it's interesting that they have gone away from their old design, that's been around for about a decade. I don't like the new look, because every time I use it I have to think whereas before it was intuitive. That's the whole point of "dont make me think". You should never have to think about how to use a web site. If you need to use your brain to do something simple, the designer has FAILED.

"Dont make me think" is a quick and easy read. It's quite small at 200 pages. It's often reduced on Amazon so keep an eye out for a bargain.

Highly recommended for all developers, even if you don't often do user interfaces. The advice can be applied to all interfaces and not just the web.

4 people found this helpful

Janet Austen

Yeah!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 1, 2010

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This is the best book on the subject that I have ever read. It points out the very kinds of usability issues that I, as someone who has worked in this area of business, has tried and failed to make developers understand.

It makes a very simple point - by designing a web user interface that is logical, simple, clear, intuitive, helpful and robust, people will find them easier to use, have fewer problems, will need less documentation/help, will come back, and will have a positive view of you and your products.

It is so full of logic and startling truth, I found myself yelling "yeah!" a few times at what it had to say. To put it another way, if you think that it's focus on the obvious is, well, all too obvious for you to have not already noticed, then think again!

If there is one book I would impore developers to read (no matter what software they develop) it would be this. It should be mandatory reading.

2 people found this helpful

Stu Hill

Guidance for Web design and update

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2020

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Recommend this book even though it has been updated since. Still relevant (April 2020)
Good points and easy to follow guidance for anyone creating or updating a website.

Went from front to back in less than 3 hours - lots of bright diagrams and examples.

A. M. Mckenzie

It's an essential book, but ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 11, 2008

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There's no point is adding my voice to the many other positive reviews here. It's a complete no-brainer that any one involved in web site build or maintentance - be they designer, developer or business stakeholder - should read and digest this book, not just once but on a regular basis.

BUT ... is there anyone else who has found their copy of DON'T MAKE ME THINK has fallen apart within a few weeks of moderate daily use? Shouldn't a book like this be built to withstand the regular handling that the content deserves?

Or is just that I'm heavy-handed?

AM, London

Mircea

Very very useful, even though it's from 2005.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2013

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I must say that I like this book a lot.
As a software engineer, which creates both web and desktop apps, I gained a lot of valuable information.
Even though it's from 2005, I definitely recommend it to anyone.
It's very short (200 relaxed pages), thus just a weekend reading, but very nice.
I would really like a version from 2013 with some updates, but most of the things Krug talks about will never become outdated.
5+

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Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition 2nd Edition

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