Book R e v i ew

Don’t Make Me Think

A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Publisher: New Riders Press, 2005

IST 413

Book R e v i ew

Don’t Make Me Think:

A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)

Publisher: New Riders Press, 2005

Price: $25.20 (Amazon.com)

IST 413 – Usab i l i t y Eng ineer ing

Bill Stevenson

April 16th, 2007

Written by:

Jim Scarola

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Edition)

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About the Author

Writing computer manuals for over a decade, Steve Krug transitioned into usability testing and

interface design in 1989. He wanted to fix problems instead of just explaining them. Over the years,

he’s evaluated and improved interfaces for a diverse range of clients, including AOL, Netscape,

BarnesandNoble.com, and Lexus.com. Krug owns his own consulting firm, named Advanced

Common Sense in Chestnut Hill, MA. He enjoys spending his time reviewing designs for new and

existing sites, conducting workshops, and consulting clients on their interface problems. This is the

only book he has written.1

Overview

Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think – A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability has the ability to

change the way people think about web design. By offering readers a practical, hands-on approach,

Krug takes the guesswork out of building sites that are both efficient and effective. While the book

provides valuable advice for professional web designers and developers, its content is equally

valuable for anybody with a stake in creating user-friendly web pages (managers, marketers, etc.).

The book itself can be organized into three sections. First, Krug discuses some common

misconceptions about how people surf the web, revealing what users truly need from a website.

Secondly, the majority of the book provides realistic methods for optimizing a site’s design based on

common user behavior. The last section focuses on usability testing, and its importance in building

websites.

(1) How people truly use the web, and what they need from a website

� Chapter 1 – Don’t make me think! – Krug’s first law of usability

When people ask him, “What’s the most important thing I should do if I want to make sure my web

site is easy to use?” Krug invariably answers, “Don’t make me think!” He explains that websites

need to be self-evident, obvious, and self-explanatory. Through effective design, they need to tell

users what the site has to offer, where to start, and how to find what they’re looking for.

Krug points out several common design errors that make users “think”. For example, obscure

naming conventions make them guess what a label means or where a button goes. A button named

“Jobs” is simple, yet meaningful. One named “Employment Opportunities” is less direct. However,

trying to be clever by naming a button “Job-o-Rama” is confusing, indirect, and distracting. Buttons

or links with poor affordance also make users “think”. By making the user guess if they’re clickable

or not, they end up getting frustrated and wasting time.

� Chapter 2 – How we really use the Web

While many people design sites thinking that users will spend the necessary time to read and digest

most of its content, Krug explains that this couldn’t be further from the truth. The typical user in

fact doesn’t read; they glance at new pages and scan text. He likens this to passing a billboard on

the highway at 60 MPH. Why do we do this? People are in a hurry. He also argues that there is not

1 http://www.sensible.com/about.html

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much of a penalty for guessing wrong on the web. In other words, if a user clicks incorrectly, the

back button makes satisficing (choosing the first reasonable option) an effective strategy.

(2) Optimizing a site’s design based on common user behavior

� Chapter 3 – Billboard Design 101

So, knowing how people use websites, what should designers do? Krug answers, build billboards.

He talks about five strategies to do so: (1) Create a clear visual hierarchy to convey prominence and

relatedness; (2) Use conventions to exploit the meanings already attributed to them (external

consistency); (3) Break up pages into clearly defined areas so the user can decide which areas to

focus on and which they can ignore; (4) Make it obvious what’s clickable so users can distinguish the

links at a glance; (5) Limit noise to reduce complexity and distractions.

� Chapter 4 – Animal, vegetable or mineral – Why users like mindless choices

This short chapter points out that “…users don’t mind a lot of clicks as long as each click is painless

and they have continued confidence that they’re on the right track”. In other words, it’s not so much

how many times a user must click, but rather how much thought goes into each click that really

determines how easy a site is to navigate.

� Chapter 5 – Omit needless words

Krug argues that many web pages use far too many words. Rather than serving a purpose, they

usually just take up space because nobody is ever going to read them. He recommends that

designers should “get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left”. Cutting

text, in Krug’s experience, lowers the page’s noise level, makes useful content more prominent, and

makes pages shorter to reduce scrolling. A common example of unnecessary text is “happy talk”, or

the introductory text that welcomes us to a site. Another is lengthy, cumbersome instructions that

expect users to read wordy text in order to understand how to complete a task.

� Chapter 6 – Street signs and breadcrumbs

While Krug likens a web page’s navigation to the signage in a brick and mortar store, he is quick to

point out some major differences. Web pages are in a virtual space, and therefore have no sense of

scale, direction, or location. In order to compensate, Krug suggests using a variety of design

techniques.

Proper labeling of a site’s pages, according to Krug, is very important. Include a site id (usually the

company or organization’s graphical logo) on every page on the site, letting the user know “this is

where I am”. Each page should also get a page name, defining the page’s unique purpose.

Krug also gives recommendations for setting up the page’s navigation, saying to divide the site’s

main sections into logical groupings. These groupings, or the site’s primary navigation, should be

persistent across all pages. He discusses how tabs are one of the best ways to handle primary

navigation, as they provide a strong mental model that most users immediately recognize.

He champions the use of breadcrumbs because they give the user a good indication of their location

in the site’s hierarchy. (You are here: Home > Hobbies > Book Collecting > Welcome)

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� Chapter 7 – Designing the home page

As its title suggests, this section is dedicated to providing design advice for the home page. Krug

talks about how, more than any other page, groups in a company or organization fight over how the

home page’s real estate should be utilized. He says to refrain from trying to give every element a

voice, but rather to give prominence to only a select set of elements.

Krug also emphasizes the importance of conveying the big picture by making sure the following

questions are answered: (1) What is this? (2) What can I do here? (3) What do they have here?

(4) Why should I be here – and not somewhere else? He advises the use of a tagline (a pitchy phrase

that characterizes the site) to answer these questions. A good tagline, he says, is “personal, lively,

and sometimes clever”.

� Chapter 8 – Why most web design team arguments about usability are a waste of time and how to

avoid them

While the previous chapter touched on balancing competing employees’ agendas in respect to the

homepage, this chapter expands this concept to the usability of the entire site. Krug explains his

observation that one contributor often advocates one design strategy, while others argue for their

own. People’s opinions tend to be motivated by their own conclusions about what users like and

dislike. “Besides wasting time,” he says, “these arguments create tension and erode respect among

team members, and can often prevent the team from making critical decisions.”

Krug recommends putting aside these generalizations, and instead ask usability questions that are

project-specific. Rather than asking, “Do most people like pull-down menus?” ask “Does this pull-

down, with these items and this wording in this context on this page create a good experience for

most people who are likely to use this site?”

(3) Usability testing and its importance in building websites

� Chapter 9 – Usability testing on 10 cents a day

Shifting to the actual process of testing usability, the book emphasizes a general strategy – test

“early and often”. It talks about how designers should start testing right away, and can even test

comparable sites before design work is even started. It talks about continuing to test regularly

throughout the project’s lifecycle in an iterative fashion. Also, Krug says, always pick individual

usability testing sessions over focus groups to determine how users really interact with the site.

The chapter discusses how many designers believe that usability testing must be a complicated,

elaborate, and expensive task. Not the case. Krug discusses how the process can be simple and

cheap. He proposes using three to four people per iteration, not getting so caught up in recruiting

representative samples, using relatively inexpensive screen capture and video recording equipment,

and conducting testing in a typical office or conference room. At the chapter’s conclusion, a sample

test session scenario/script is given.

� Chapter 10 – Usability as common courtesy

Here, Krug explains a concept known as the Reservoir of Goodwill. This idea captures how users

typically enter a site with a positive attitude, or a full reservoir. As the user navigates the site,

certain experiences affect his/her reservoir – either positively or negatively. Out of date, or difficult

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to find information, for example, depletes the reservoir. Saving the user steps or anticipating

questions replenishes the reservoir. If the user’s reservoir becomes empty, he/she generally leaves.

� Chapter 11 – Accessibility, Cascading Style Sheets, and you

According to this chapter, there are five things designers can do right now to improve their sites’

usability: (1) Fix the problems that confuse everyone by noting common troubles; (2) Regularly read

articles related to usability in order to enhance your knowledge; (3) Read a book to learn more;

(4) Start using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to gain greater control over formatting, consistency

among browsers, and simplicity in development; (5) “Go for the low-hanging fruit” by fixing the

easiest things first.

� Chapter 12 – “Help! My boss wants me to _____.”

Krug concludes the book, saying he often receives letters from usability professionals whose bosses

insist that they make, in their opinion, bad usability choices. Over the last few pages, he includes

some sample (sometimes humorous) letters he’s sent to the boss in response.

Take-Aways

Don’t Make Me Think sends a clear and powerful message to those in charge of creating web pages:

Make your site as effortless as possible. Create self-explanatory designs. Know that users are in a

hurry. Don’t write a novel, design billboards. Harness the power of accepted conventions. Make

usability decisions based on the situation at hand, rather than preconceived notions. Conduct

usability tests early and often. Continue learning more about usability.

Impressions/Recommendation

After thinking about my overall impressions of the book, I couldn’t really come up with any

weaknesses. Fittingly, even the book itself is very usable and easy to read, and Krug’s frequent use

of visual examples effectively emphasis his points. It provides practical, actionable advice to

anybody who wants to improve the usability of their site and, for that, I highly recommend it. I have

no doubt that I will use its advice in my future career.