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

by Krug Steve

every question mark adds to our cognitive workload, distracting our attention from the task at hand.

though, most of the time we don’t choose the best option—we choose the first reasonable option, a strategy known as satisficing.

If you’re going to innovate, you have to understand the value of what you’re replacing

Innovate when you know you have a better idea, but take advantage of conventions when you don’t.

each page should have a clear visual hierarchy.

A good visual hierarchy saves us work by preprocessing the page for us, organizing and prioritizing its contents in a way that we can grasp almost instantly.

“three mindless, unambiguous clicks equal one click that requires thought.”2

Getting rid of all those words that no one is going to read has several beneficial effects: It reduces the noise level of the page. It makes the useful content more prominent. It makes the pages shorter, allowing users to see more of each page at a glance without scrolling.

Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to the bare minimum.