Book: Don’t Make me Think
(This is the first of what I hope becomes a series of posts on books I finish reading. I hope any of this ends up being useful to someone.)
I don’t plan to review Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability in any new way; 411 people have done it so far in Amazon.com alone. Considering at least 100,000 people have already read this, you can take it for granted that it’s a good book. I guess I’m writing to convince you to read it as soon as possible (if you don’t have already, of course).
Upon receiving it at home, I was surprised to see how thin it is: the Brazilian edition which I bought (I’ll get back to it shortly) is only 127 pages long; it seemed like a very introductory, superficial book. I guess I’m more used to judging a book’s by it’s length than I thought, and got punched in the face with that unfair assumption later on. In fact, the author himself aimed to conceive something ‘that could be read in a single airplane trip’.
Let me just tell you this: just 50 pages on, I was already quoting Krug all day long in discussions at work. His ideas are so simple, make so much sense and are so generic that, if you’re designing/developing interfaces (web-based or not) you’ll see yourself constantly in situations where Krug can help you. His common sense approach just becomes something you take with yourself, and put before the many obscure considerations people end up having when discussing project details.
It’s also interesting to see how the examples in the book—which are only two years old in many cases—are already outdated, while the principles he shares are more up-to-date than ever. His ideal definition of a home page has become the standard template of Web 2.0 sites (big, clear company statements with big call-to-action buttons and links); and even though Krug barely mentions web-apps in the text, everything he writes just fits in perfectly to them.
Summing up: huge recommendation, for anyone involved in sites/software design/development/management/conception.
* Note on the Brazilian edition: if you’re a fellow Brazilian, avoid the AltaBooks edition at all costs. Really. Run from it like you’d run from the devil. Page layout is terrible, with no margins whatsoever, reaaaaaaaaaally long sentences, the footnote references are all screwed up, a lot of bad translations. In many cases the book tears apart the usability principles Krug is explaining in that very page. I’m thinking of warning him about this, if can manage to get in touch.
If you can read the English in this blog, you deserve a good edition—as I believe the original one is. So go for it.
#1 Chris Blow, Mar 12, 2008, 12:08 am: ()
I always recommend this book and have bought it for several clients. It was nice to read review confirming confirming that it’s, we’ll, just badass in its simplicity. :)
One of the methodologies i wished it covered is remote research. I work on a web app called ethnio that is designed to make remote UI testing really easy … I think it’s only a matter of time before lab testing is considered completely outdated. I think/hope Krug’s next edition will cover it more extensively as it is so much less expensive ….
#2 Chris Blow, Mar 12, 2008, 12:08 am: ()
Nice ampersand BTW!
#3 bruno, Mar 12, 2008, 7:45 pm: ()
Hey Chris!
It’s nice to see I wasn’t being redundant when writing about this book.
I’m not sure lab testing is necessarily becoming outdated, because there’s a human portion to which that I’m not sure can be entirely replaced by remote testing. But doing it remotely can surely allow for a much wider reach (which is something Krug is quite emphatic about) and even simultaneous testing with a small team.
By the way: suggesting this book to clients seems like a very good idea. It’s short enough to not be disencouraging but dense enough to really get something through.
Ethnio seems pretty cool from my first look! I’ll try to go further into it in the next few days, and perhaps give it a try.
Thanks for dropping by!
PS: On the ampersand: thanks! Though it should go to Lucas de Groot, who designed TheSerif, the header font.