Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: A very informative Book
Comment: As the President and Creative Director for AUDIN Web Design [...] I found this book refreshingly informative. This book provided examples and case studies not found in any other book. I think this book was written for the client, but every web designer should read this book to get an outsiders (and insiders) view of web design. Over 95% of web design is wasteful and just awful and this book highlights that fact. This book is not a How-To book but a What-Not-To-Do which brings home the point even better. It's also more effective than some website that criticizes other websites, which I will not mention any names here. Anyway, a great quick read and very informative. I recommend highly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Made me think
Comment: Excellent and thought provoking book that helped focus my ideas on web useability. As Project Manager for web design projects, I needed a view from 20,000 feet - this got me there and then brought me down to earth. Very helpful.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Simple. Concise. Web Guru. Makes you think.
Comment: Steve Krug's, "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability," is as good as any web page design and development management book around. It's style is based on the principles Krug lays forth of simplicity, minimize textual content, and don't tax people's already overloaded brains. The way the book was designed, thus, has Krug practicing what he preaches, at all of our benefit.
I have been in a position in corporate America to manage a corporate web site since December of 2006. After some precursory research on my favorite little book store: Amazon, I came up with Krug's web usabilty book on favorite listmania after favorite listmania. "Don't Make Me Think," made it on the top list for web designers, web page project managers, business owners, and average Joes and Jill like you and me. So I wanted to start my professional reading with a book that had some common collective wisdom behind it. Lo and behold, I was not disappointed.
Krug's book is probably best read through practice. I have already spouted off several of his principles at our weekly web page project meetings and I can tell folks are looking at me a little different these days. It could be because I'm going through my mid-life crisis and started wearing a goatee and using all this metero hair product, but I don't think that's the reason alone. I suspect it's because I scanned Krug's cartoons and sent them out to the members of our working group and executive council. I love the frame that has the project manager getting caught up in a web page design "religious debate," between a creative designer and a practical programmer with a thought bubble over her head saying, "I hate my life." Funny stuff. You'll have to read this book and sit through one of the web page design meetings to see its true truth and wisdom.
Though I've learned if you try to enact some of Krug's principles like having navigation tabs similar to those found on Amazon, you just may start some religious debates of your own. The book has a little something for everyone. For the web page design and management neophytes like myself, it has to be one of the best introductions to the ins and outs of what really works on web sites for engaging Internet users in such a way that keeps them coming back for more. For seasoned professionals in the industry, Krug's book will no doubt cause you to be challenged in your thinking, wrestle with how to gain control back from your overly-busy home page, and what can now be done with all that text you were stuffing your overly boring corporate site that no one really bothers to read.
For me the book started to drag with the two sections of web site testing. But, we recently stood up a new functionality feature that was in sore need of troubleshooting testing before pushing it live. Believe it or not, designers and ad agency managers don't catch very many mistakes before letting their clients view the page. So I found myself referring back to Krug's book to see how best to approach testing. As it turned out our work team, and some family members, caught the majority of the mistakes and folks were very happy with the final product. Another thing to watch out for is that Krug is giving advice based on what works best for the user of web page sites. Some of his advice is contrary to what I've experienced in my professional life in regards to search engine optimization. Krug says to cut out extraneous and unneeded text which is all fine and good for your web page readers, but will not get your page optimized (when a person types in keywords to yahoo or google...your page hitting the top of the search results list). So, just watch for that if you are more interested in people finding your web site vs. having an optimally pleasant experience once they get there.
So, Steve Krug is my new best friend and has helped me keep my job for another month. I think if you pick up a copy of, "Don't Make Me Think," you will be thinking Krug is your best friend too, with his egregious wit and practical knowledge of what works and doesn't on Internet web sites. He even does a minor overhaul of Amazon's site. You won't want to miss it. ...mmw
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thank you, Mr. Krug!
Comment: Dear Mr. Krug,
Thank you for writing such a user-friendly book. It was assigned reading for a Masters program in Instructional Technology in which I'm enrolled. The book stands out like an island of rest in a sea of confusion.
You could have written a book with a lot of filler, and gone on and on as if no one was listening. But instead you wrote in a way that makes it seems like your talking directly to me.
And in an environment where most everyone else seems to be just throwing up a verbal smoke screen, being addressed personally has been very affirming. The result is that you've encouraged me to be a Mensch in my own work, even when I'm "sure" there will be no direct payback.
When I treat people with respect, I find a new world opens up before me.
Drew
Customer Rating:
Summary: Learned a Bit But Not As Much As I Would Have Liked.
Comment: I was expecting a lot more out of this book. 3/5 stars
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