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

by Krug Steve

It’s only natural to assume that everyone uses the Web the same way we do, and—like everyone else—we tend to think that our own behavior is much more orderly and sensible than it really is.

If your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboards, then design great billboards.

If you can make something significantly clearer by making it slightly inconsistent, choose in favor of clarity.

When you’re editing your Web pages, it’s probably a good idea to start with the assumption that everything is visual noise

In general, you’ll want to use more headings than you’d think and put more time into writing them.

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

In general, if you’re a designer and you think a visual cue is sticking out like a sore thumb, it probably means you need to make it twice as prominent.

Now people are just as likely—or more likely—to enter your site by clicking on a link in an email, a blog, or something from a social network that takes them directly to a page deep in your site.

Good taglines are personable, lively, and sometimes clever. Clever is good, but only if the cleverness helps convey—not obscure—the benefit.

Besides wasting time, these arguments create tension and erode respect among team members and can often prevent the team from making critical decisions.

What works is good, integrated design that fills a need—carefully thought out, well executed, and tested.

A simple test early—while you still have time to use what you learn from it—is almost always more valuable than an elaborate test later.

You’ll always find more problems than you have the resources to fix, so it’s very important that you focus on fixing the most serious ones first.

Scratch an expert and you’ll often find someone who’s muddling through—just at a higher level.

To paraphrase Lincoln, the best you can do is please some of the people some of the time.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Just doing something well isn’t good enough to create a hit; you have to do something incredibly well.

You need to do better than most, and usability testing will help you figure out how.

Even if you’ve made mistakes that have diminished my goodwill, you can replenish it by doing things that make me feel like you’re looking out for my best interests.

Don’t make me jump through hoops just because you don’t want to write a little bit of code.

How many opportunities do we have to dramatically improve people’s lives just by doing our job a little better?

Try not to take it personally. Do good work. Enjoy your home life. Be happy.

Temptation by Chris Nodder that explains how an understanding of human frailties can guide your design decisions.