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

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2799 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Usability design is one of the most important though often least attractive tasks for a Web developer. In Don't Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humour 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 within it 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. For example, "We don't read pages--we scan them" and, "We don't figure out how things work--we muddle through". Getting to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces top-notch sites.

Using an attractive mix of full-colour 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 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

Book Info
A guide for Web designers, programmers, project managers, and anyone else creating a Web site, clearly explaining what is needed to make good decisions about creating a usable Web site that people want to visit. Softcover.

From the Author
Even if every Web site could afford a usability expert (which they can't), there just aren't enough of us to go around. So I tried to boil down what I've learned over the years (principles like "Don't make me think" and "Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left") into a short, profusely illustrated book--one that even the guy who signs the checks (the one who looks at the site when it's ready to launch and says "I hate green. And there should be more big pictures.") might read.

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Customer Reviews

Worth Reading But Has Serious Flaws
Mr. Krug thoughtfully points out usability issues that every web developer should be aware of, and his points are well-considered ones. But there are some serious flaws. To begin with is his definition of "usability" -- usability for whom? Mr. Krug completely ignores web accessibility issues for persons with disabilities. The web-viewing public he is concerned with have no disabilities that make reading pages difficult or impossible, do not use assistive technologies, or do not use old browsers. The author fails to mention that approximately 20% of web surfers have some form of disability, and fails to suggest online or book resources for learning more about this issue. Designing for ALL surfers is not, as he would put it, 'rocket surgery'. Is he really unaware of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as put forth by the W3C or of section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act? His sections about navigation are absurdly one-sided. Does he truly think that javascripted navigation, or navigation with tabs are universally usable?

Secondly, the author is still stuck in largely tables-based HTML presentation methods. Usability means building a site that works on hand-held and telephonic devices as well as assistive interenet devices. This can be accomplished through XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets. In fact, separating markup from presentation is a large part of what Mr. Krug should be discussing, but doesn't.

Thirdly, Mr. Krug's examples are of large, well-branded sites. That's fine, but his comments and suggestions seem best-suited to those sites, not small business or other small-site needs. This shows in his lack of information about designing pages that will expedite search engine effectiveness. In fact, he outright dismisses the usefulness of the introductory paragraph often found on homepages as "happy talk", stating that "happy talk must die" (p. 46). Many search engines print this paragraph, or a portion of it, as part of the information you see when you're searching for a topic. Why not tell developers how to utilize this paragraph to advantage? Is it because his examples are large sites with well-known branding that don't require additional information? The wording of that paragraph can make or break a search engine user's decision about visiting a site.

Even though it is painfully lacking in some very vital information, Mr. Krug's book is worth reading. However, a savvy developer will not take everything he says as gospel, but will continue to learn more about what usability *really* is, what new developments are coming 'round the bend, and will seek out more fully-rounded information before committing development hours and money just to end up with a half-usable site.

Good book, poor binding
The content is great and the book lives up to its reputation.
I am very unhappy with the binding (New Riders) for this 2nd edition, however. Not more than an hour into reading the book the binding is falling apart at several places. Now I have a book I thought I'd keep a long time barely being kept together with several pieces of scotch tape.

Only for Beginners - Light on Substance
I've been a usability engineer/information architect for 8 years and have read many books on both GUI and web design. I'm sorry to report that this book was disappointing. It took me only a few hours to breeze through and I came away with very little that was new to me and with the perception that this book was light on substance. Perhaps this is because I have been in this field for so long. However, I just finished reading Jeff Johnson's "GUI Bloopers" and, even after designing GUIs for so many years, I learned so much from Jeff's book. If you are new to this field, Krug's book will help but make sure to read "Designing Web Usability" by Nielsen, "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web" by Rosenfeld and Morville, "Designing Large Scale Web Sites" by Sano, and "Web Navigation" by Jennifer Fleming. I also recommend Johnson's book on GUI design. So many GUI Design Principles are directly applicable to good web site design.