Book Review

Profile

Author: Steve Krug

Publisher: New Riders Publishing

Publication Date: October 13, 2000

Length: 224 pages

ISBN: 0-7897-2310-7

Review Details

Quite a catchy title, indeed! It refers to the author's response to the question, "What's the most important thing I should do if I want to make sure my Web site is easy to use?" He refers to this response as "Krug's First Law of Usability." His other "Laws of Usability" are similarly irreverent: The Second: "It doesn't matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice." The Third: "Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left."

Subtitled "A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability," this slim (196 pages) volume packs a lot of food for thought into its eleven chapters. In the book's introduction, Krug points out that "...much of what I do is common sense, and anyone with some interest can learn to do it." He further maintains that, "Like a lot of common sense, though, it's not necessarily obvious until after someone pointed it out to you." In fact, his consultancy practice is called Advanced Common Sense, and its corporate motto is "It's not rocket surgery." Perhaps you can tell from these few initial observations that the book is written in a light, breezy, don't-take-yourself-too-seriously manner.

The book is divided into three major subsections: Guiding Principles, Things You Need to Get Right, and Making Sure You Got Them Right. The chapters address such topics as designing pages for scanning, writing for the web, designing navigation, home pages, team dynamics, and usability testing on a budget.

This book makes a few key points related to the design of highly usable web sites, illustrates them profusely, and continually refers back to the book title as he develops his ideas. In the chapter entitled "How we really use the Web," Krug proposes three Facts of Life, based upon his experiences observing people who use the Web. These are:

1. We don't read pages. We scan them
2. We don't make optimal choices. We satisfice.
3. We don't figure out how things work. We muddle through.

In another chapter, Krug lists five important things you can do to make sure people see and understand as much of your site as possible:

• Create a clear visual hierarchy on each page
• Take advantage of conventions
• Break pages up into clearly defined areas
• Make it obvious what's clickable
• Minimize noise.

As is the case with many contemporary works on web design, the author offers access to a companion web site where updates and explanations can be found. At the Don't Make Me Think update site, you'll find a clarification of some potentially confusing illustrations (along with an apology for making the readers think), a couple of free usability testing tools, and an offer to email you when something further is added to the updates page. There's also a link there to a sample chapter (Chapter 2 on How We Really Use the Web) along with the Table of Contents of the book.

In summary, I have to say that I wish I had read this book ages ago, when I first became interested in web site design. It distills into one easy read the basic ideas that I've spent years accumulating through hard-won experience. I recommend it highly to anyone just beginning to try to understand what makes web sites usable. Furthermore, I think it's a worthwhile use of time for those who have been at web design for a while because it serves to remind us of the important basics that solve the vast majority of web site usability problems.