Book Review - Don't Make Me Think

There is a defiant art of understanding weather a website is easy enough to use or not and why. As a graphic artist I can easily fixate on particular elements that I have interest in and not pay attention to details that makes a website easy to use. On second and third passes over a design I begin to tweak element to create clear information architecture and obvious website functionality. This book has helped to define common website elements in relation to clear navigation and site usability.  With these elements and practices predefined in my mind I seem to be able to design a website right the first time (or at least quicker).

This is a relatively thin book and written to get through very quickly. It’s layout, typography and formatting makes for a book easy to skim and good reference book. The book it self has great usability. The author, Steve Krug, writes in a very down to earth voice and makes all the principles seem very simple. He even states “It’s not rocket surgery”.

The book is filled with visual examples including lots of layout comparisons. The author speaks of how to design a page for scanning, not reading. Other key practices detailed are creating clearly defined areas and making obvious clickables. Of course it’s all very common stuff, but good to go over and see good and bad examples.

Other chapters go over copy writing basic practices that help usability. As a graphic artist who dose not (should not) write content, I find my self having to wire content for clients all the time. This chapter on copyrighting has turned out quite useful.

The end of the book goes in to good detail about how to make your own usability testing sessions. He keeps them very simple and explains how to get the most out of them.

Overall a great book and a must read for any website designer who has not read any usability books. Most of the info I had a good understanding of instinctively, but now it’s clearly defined to be focused on in pre and post production stages of website design.