Its no easy task doing a book review for book on Web usability especially a book so well written like “Don’t make me think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug”
This book will introduce you to yourself as the web user. Granted this book is all about common sense , so you can probably argue that you don’t learn anything new. It is more of discovering what you probably know but is locked under the layers of your sub-conscience mind.
The message
Anything which makes a user pause and think stops the natural flow of web surfing and is an impediment which soon translates into disappointment.
We scan , not read the pages. Do not design your web pages to be read from the top-left corner to bottom-right corner. Users scan for keywords , skipping content irrelevant to our needs.
Get rid of half the text , and then get rid of half of what’s left. More there is to read, less inviting your web site is.
Web users aren’t looking to make optimal choices- we suffice. We don’t want to read all the instructions to know what we need. The moment we find something what we think will serve our purpose- we go ahead and try that.
Why I liked this book…
This book practices what it preaches. It truly walks its talk !!! It is concise, to the point, a good mix of pictures and text, good sense of humor, short chapters, with messages that will stick to you for long.
Interestingly, I picked up the book to know more about web usability, but the messages delivered in this book, I found them relevant to all facets of software development.
Developers scan the code, we don’t read it. Looking for the keywords like save, read, create, update- whatever is relevant to what they are looking for, skipping the rest.
A typical developer (at least developers like me) doesn’t read all documentation to understand an API, we suffice by trying the method name which closely resembles what we need and if that doesn’t serve the purpose- we simply try another…
The less you document, more are the chances that someone will actually read it.
To anyone who has been to a meeting where we discuss trivial things so passionately, does this give you feeling of deja vu ?
I will even venture to say that this book has influenced in some way even on how I write my emails or even blog (Every time I review this blog , I end up removing some extra words )
About the author
Steve krug is a consultant for usability and has authored couple of more books on usability. He also provided workshops on usability. The tag line on his web site is “Advanced Common sense”
The linky…
You can buy this book from here.
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