Book Review: Don’t Make Me Think – A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
How do your clients view your website, do they find the information they are looking for? Do they become frustrated and just leave?
I went on-line today to view the status of my 2006 taxes and was instantly irritated by the poor usability on the CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency) site. I was told how easy it was by the CRA agent I spoke to when I filed my taxes, but I discovered fairly quickly that if I didn’t read everything on the page I wasn’t going anywhere in the site. Since I didn’t have time for that I quickly left the site and called an agent. Sometimes companies haven’t budgeted for usability testing and rely on our feedback to improve their sites. This is exactly what the CRA site does, so unless people like me let them know what I had problems with they will never know.
Going through this process this morning reminded me of a great book on Website Usability, Steve Krug’s Don’t Make me Think. This is a quick, easy read and can help you improve the usability of your site so you don’t lose clients or customers. This book isn’t just for developers and designers, it is for anyone who has a website or is thinking of building a website. Steve Kung uses humour to open your mind on how great usability can be achieved and he does it without overwhelming you with a bunch of technical terms you’ve never heard of.
Why is usability important?
Usability is about user experience, if someone doesn’t have a good user experience with your site, it is likely they won’t come back.
Good Usability = positive user experience + customer satisfaction + positive PR
You can also look at it this way:
Good Usability = Improved ROI and is really just good practice.
Still need convincing?
Usability Expert Jakob Nielsen puts it bluntly, “On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a web site is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave.
If users get lost on a web site, they leave. If a web site’s information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here?
There’s no such thing as a user reading a web site manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface.
There are plenty of other web sites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty.”
You can check out Steve Krug’s book at http://www.sensible.com.
Category: Books, Usability, Web Design 3 comments »
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:05 pm
I agree this is a great book. I particularly agree that it is invaluable for non-developers, designers and clients. One thing about the book is that it doesn’t talk a lot about web application issues like complicated forms. Another great book that covers some of this is “designing the obvious: a common sense approach to web application design”, by robert hoekman, jr.
A valuable read for those building more application style websites.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:32 am
I think the book is great for someone who is unfamiliar with the idea usability because as you said, Krug uses humour and great visuals to illustrate his points.
But you’re right- if you’re someone like me who wishes to find out more on the technical side of usability or just experience design, in general, the book isn’t as useful as texts like the “polar bear” book- Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, or even Jesse James Garret’s Elements of User Experience (both of which I recommend!)
May 25th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Derek, you are absolutely right. I just finish reading the sample chapter of Jesse James Garret’s Elements of User Experience and it is definitely a more detailed book for people who would like to know more. He goes into much more detail about the elements of User experience and even breaks them down into planes to more easily explain them. I can see why you felt this book was useful.