"Don't Make Me Think" summary/review

“Don’t Make Me Think” was a great read about basically what the title says: a common sense approach to web usability.  The author, Steve Krug explains how he is a web designer and how his clients send him links to their websites they want him to redesign or rebuild.  He looks at the sites and figures out whether they’re easy enough to use and then writes a report describing the problems that he found that are likely to cause users grief and suggests possible solutions.  Krug admits that much of his work is common sense and anyone with an interest in it can learn to do it. 

I think it’s interesting how the title of the book is “Don’t Make Me Think”.  Krug explains that this phrase is his first law of usability and the overriding principle when deciding whether something works or doesn’t work in a Web design.  Krug explains how when we’re looking at a website, we don’t want to be asking a bunch of questions.  We should be able to look at the layout and say “Ok, there’s the categories section, and there’s today’s special deals”...etc.

Krug uses Amazon.com as an example frequently about how an efficient website is designed.  For example, he explains how with Amazon’s search bar, all you have to do is type in what you want to search and Amazon takes care of the rest.  You don’t have to drop down and filter your search yourself in a category like “books, authors, or keyword”.  I think Amazon is a great example of what makes a good website.  I’ve never had a problem navigating the site and I’ve never gotten overwhelmed when looking for something.  The relatively simple layout and search tool on Amazon make online shopping a simple task… Unfortunately too simple – as I have to limit myself on how much time I spend on the site or I will be spending all of my money.  Touché Amazon. 

I love how one of the sections in the reading says, “Fact of life #1: We don’t read pages.  We scan them.”  This statement holds so much truth!  I know as a college student, I will admit I’ve gotten to the point where I hardly read anything thoroughly anymore.  This is not entirely a good thing, but when you’re assigned multiple chapters in each class every week – you learn how to scan through to get the main ideas and get your assignments done.  As Krug explains, the same goes for the web when we’re looking at sites.  We’re usually in a hurry, we know we don’t need to read everything, and we’re good at it. 

We also learn about creating pages designed for scanning not reading.  Krug offers five important things we can do to make sure our readers/clients see and understand as much of our site as possible: create a clear visual hierarchy on each page, take advantage of conventions, break pages up into clearly defined areas, make it obvious what’s clickable, and minimize noise. 

Krug explains another crucial rule for web design and writing for the web in general: omitting needless words.  He says 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.  It makes the pages shorter, allowing users to see more of each page at a glance without scrolling.  I think this is absolutely an important rule for what it takes to make an efficient web design.  This is also a good rule for social media and writing for TV and radio.  On social media we’re limited to 140 characters with Twitter updates, and therefore are forced to keep our posts clean and concise.  With TV and radio we have to keep a conversational tone so this rule of omitting needless words can apply there too. 

Overall the reading gave me great insight into how to manage an efficient website and how to design a site that will be easy for my viewers/audience to navigate.