Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

by Krug Steve

We’re inherently lost when we’re on the Web, and we can’t peek over the aisles to see where we are. Web navigation compensates for this missing sense of place by embodying the site’s hierarchy, creating a sense of “there.”

Navigation isn’t just a feature of a Web site; it is the Web site, in the same way that the building, the shelves, and the cash registers are Se...

Two of the purposes of navigation are fairly obvious: to help us find whatever it is we’re looking for and to tell us where we are.

Clear, well-thought-out navigation is one of the best opportunities a site has to create a good impression.

The conventions specify (loosely) the appearance and location of the navigation elements so we know what to look for and where to look when we need them.

Just having the navigation appear in the same place on every page with a consistent look gives you instant confirmation that you’re still in the same site—which is more important than you might think.

On pages where a form needs to be filled in, the persistent navigation can sometimes be an unnecessary distraction.

we expect to see the Site ID at the top of the page—usually in (or at least near) the upper left corner.

Like the signs for the facilities in a store, the Utilities list should be slightly less prominent than the Sections.

As a rule, the persistent navigation can accommodate only four or five Utilities—the ones users are likely to need most often.

The less frequently used leftovers belong in the footer: the small text links at the bottom of each page.

Almost all Web users expect the Site ID to be a button that can take you to the Home page. I think it’s also a good idea to include Home with the main sections of the site.

If you want to give me the option to scope the search, give it to me when it’s useful—when I get to the search results page and discover that searching everything turned up far too many hits, so I need to limit the scope.

I think this is one of the most common problems in Web design (especially in larger sites): failing to give the lower-level navigation the same attention as the top.

But the reality is that users usually end up spending as much time on lower-level pages as they do at the top.

There are four things you need to know about page names:

The name needs to be in the right place.

The name needs to be prominent.

The name needs to match what I clicked.

The most common failing of “You are here” indicators is that they’re too subtle.

Too-subtle visual cues are actually a very common problem. Designers love subtle cues, because subtlety is one of the traits of sophisticated design. But Web users are generally in such a hurry that they routinely miss subtle cues.

Breadcrumbs show you the path from the Home page to where you are and make it easy to move back up to higher levels in the hierarchy of a site.

And they make it easy to open a section by reaching for its tab (or, in the case of the Web, clicking on it). I think they’re an excellent and underused navigation choice. Here’s why I like them:

Try the trunk test

But the reality is that we’re often dropped down in the middle of a site with no idea where we are because we’ve followed a link from a search engine, a social networking site, or email from a friend, and we’ve never seen this site’s navigation scheme before.

The standard needs to be that these elements pop off the page so clearly that it doesn’t matter whether you’re looking closely or not. You want to be relying solely on the overall appearance of things, not the details.

Chapter 7. The Big Bang Theory of Web Design

Think about all the things the Home page has to accommodate:

In addition to these concrete needs, the Home page also has to meet a few abstract objectives:

As if that wasn’t daunting enough, it all has to be done under adverse conditions. Some of the usual constraints:

“University Website” | xkcd.com

Given everything the Home page has to accomplish, if a site is at all complex even the best Home page design can’t do it all. Designing a Home page inevitably involves compromise.

The one thing you can’t afford to lose in the shuffle—and the thing that most often gets lost—is conveying the big picture.

As quickly and clearly as possible, the Home page needs to answer the four questions I have in my head when I enter a new site for the first time:

This is what I call the Big Bang Theory of Web Design. Like the Big Bang Theory, it’s based on the idea that the first few seconds you spend on a new Web site or Web page are critical.

Because of this, every page of your site should do as much as it can to orient them properly: to give them the right idea about who you are, what you do, and what your site has to offer.

But there are three important places on the page where we expect to find explicit statements of what the site is about.

You need to show the Home page to people from outside your organization to tell you whether the design is getting this job done because the “main point” is the one thing nobody inside the organization will notice is missing.

Taglines are a very efficient way to get your message across, because they’re the one place on the page where users most expect to find a concise statement of the site’s purpose.

Jakob Nielsen has suggested that a really good tagline is one that no one else in the world could use except you,

Don’t confuse a tagline with a motto, like “We bring good things to life,” “You’re in good hands,” or “To protect and to serve.” A motto expresses a guiding principle, a goal, or an ideal, but a tagline conveys a value proposition.

When I enter a new site, after a quick look around the Home page I should be able to say with confidence: Here’s where to start if I want to search. Here’s where to start if I want to browse. Here’s where to start if I want to sample their best stuff.

The concept, originated by nineteenth-century amateur mathematician William Forster Lloyd, was popularized in a classic essay on overpopulation by biologist Garrett Hardin (“The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, December 1968).

I usually call these endless discussions “religious debates,” because they have a lot in common with most discussions of religion and politics: They consist largely of people expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can’t be proven

And given the strength of these convictions—and human nature—there’s a natural tendency to project these likes and dislikes onto users in general: to think that most users like the same things we like. We tend to think that most users are like us.

And because these reactions are happening at a brain-chemical level, it’s very difficult for them to imagine that everybody doesn’t feel exactly the same way.

Endorphins Involved

I once saw a particularly puzzling feature on the Home page of a prominent—and otherwise sensibly designed—site. When I asked about it, I was told, “Oh, that. It came to our CEO in a dream, so we had to add it.” True story.

The right kind of question to ask is “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?” And there’s really only one way to answer that kind of question: testing.

Where debates about what people like waste time and drain the team’s energy, usability testing tends to defuse most arguments and break impasses by moving the discussion away from the realm of what’s right or wrong and what people like or dislike and into the realm of what works or doesn’t work.

The main difference is that in usability tests, you watch people actually use things, instead of just listening to them talk about them.