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

by Krug Steve

OK, now we’re going to try doing some specific tasks. And again, as much as possible, it will help us if you can try to think out loud as you go along. Can you think of some service that you need that you could use this site to get help with?

So if you were going to look for somebody to build your deck, what would you do first?

So what would you do?

Well, which one do you think you’d click on?

Now that we’re done with the tasks, I have a few questions. What about these pictures near the top of the page—the ones with the numbers? What did you make of them?

Any reason why you didn’t pay much attention to them?

FOCUS RUTHLESSLY ON FIXING THE

Take “new feature” requests with a grain of salt. Participants will often say, “I’d like it better if it could do x.” It pays to be suspicious of these requests for new features.

Participants aren’t designers. They may occasionally come up with a great idea, but when they do you’ll know it immediately, because your first thought will be “Why didn’t we think of that?!”

no harm, no foul.

Materiality.

rather than being the negative force that they often feel like, constraints actually make design easier and foster innovation.

In my experience, many—if not most—serious usability problems are the result of a poor decision about a tradeoff.

Every site gets larger if you use Zoom, but only sites that have moved beyond fixed-size fonts (usually a good indicator of effort to make things accessible) respond to Text Size.

“Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work with Screen Readers.”

Put a “Skip to Main Content” link at the beginning of each page. Imagine having to spend 20 seconds (or a minute, or two) listening to the global navigation at the top of every page before you could look at the content, and you’ll understand why this is important.

Cost-justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age, edited by Randolph Bias and Deborah Mayhew.

CSI,

Continual service improvement.

Every time I go to a client’s office I spend most of my time marveling at the fact that so many people can survive in the corporate world.

Get your boss (and her boss) to watch a usability test.

Do the first one on your own time. When you do your first test, don’t ask for permission; just keep it incredibly simple and informal, and find volunteers for participants so it doesn’t cost anything.

Do a test of the competition.

Empathy is virtually a professional requirement for usability work.

Robert Cialdini’s classic book on the subject, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Don’t use small, low-contrast type.

Don’t put labels inside form fields.

“Don’t Put Labels Inside Text Boxes (Unless You’re Luke W)”

Preserve the distinction between visited and unvisited text links.

Don’t float headings between paragraphs.

“Hang by your thumbs, and write if you get work.”