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Summary: An Illustrated Guide To Meaningful Web Presence
Comment: Last term during graduate course of HCI (Human computer interaction), my professor made a WebCT forum thread called "HCI Resources". Students were to post entries ranging from web based HCI resources to newspaper articles and books which they've found useful. Krug's "Don't make me think" subtitled as "A common sense approach to web usability" has made quite a mark among the listings by multiple mentions and was highlighted in several other assignment posts. This is when I started reading it and despite the common belief that technical books are selective reads, "Don't make me think" is an addictive page turner in its right.
Krug's book is generally based on KIS (Keep it simple) principle and is an easy read. Like the topic, book is aesthetically well designed and organized into distinct chapters addressing different topics of web usability and HCI in general. Chapter titles are not your-usual-everyday-headlines but rather Daily Onion style ones depicting the theme discussed in the chapter. Krug's laws of usability may seem like common sense to most of us but you'd be amazed to see how many websites around us don't follow these simple guidelines to enhance the user experience.
This two hundred page book is divided into eleven chapters and definitely deserves to be called "an illustrated guide on making your web presence meaningful!" Steve Krug has worked hard in providing us concrete details and no-fluff advice on all things web usability. With gentle wit and humor, he emphasizes on web designing for scanning instead of reading, presenting simple mindless choices to user, providing meaningful and short text and realization of business requirements for frequent changes. Along with pertaining illustrations, author has provided the reader interesting scenarios, comments, usability testing advice and web accessibility measures. For a web designer, developer, an application development manager or a technology devout CTO, this is a mind-opener towards realization of HCI's importance in the business. "Don't make me think" makes you think how important it is to understand that usability is not the enemy of design and contrary to common belief, it augments a good design. Among several acclaimed HCI books (for instance "User Interface Design and Evaluation - Morgan Kaufmann 2005, ISBN: 0-12-088436-4") and ACM papers I have been through, I've found Krug's laws to be most relevant and practical. It's a highly recommended reading for web designers, content managers, web developers and all others who utilize web as core business tool or accessorize on it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't Make Me Think
Comment: Steve Krug investigates the subject of web usability in this well-written book.
He essentially highlights the general and finer points of what you should think about as a web designer, developer, CEO, salesperson, marketing director, when developing a layout for your website.
He uses real world examples using some very well known sites and points out the "good and bad" in each of them. What I especially liked was how Steve would "re-design" the site and show you how each of these examples could improve.
It is a great introductary book for anyone interested in developing sites or anyone who owns a web business
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Summary: A usability classic that *needs* to be read by web designers...
Comment: If I read a book on web design or web usability, the thing that will turn me off the quickest is the dogmatic rantings of a self-proclaimed "expert" on the subject. It's far too easy to call one's preferences "best practices" and think that everyone needs to conform to them. Hate it, hate it, hate it! So why did I pick up and read Don't Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition) by Steve Krug? Because it's one of those usability books that actually clicks with me and restores my faith in common sense design techniques.
Contents:
Guiding Principles: Don't make me think!; How we really use the Web; Billboard Design 101; Animal, vegetable, or mineral?; Omit needless words
Things You Need To Get Right: Street signs and Breadcrumbs; The first step in recovery is admitting that the Home page is beyond your control
Making Sure You Got Them Right: "The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends"; Usability testing on 10 cents a day
Larger Concerns And Outside Influences: Usability as common courtesy; Accessibility, Cascading Style Sheets; and you; Help! My boss wants me to ______.
Recommended Reading; Acknowledgments; Index
First off, Steve Krug does this web design stuff for a living. So rather than live in the world of theory and stopwatches, he's actually seen and built things that both work and fail. Because of that, his common sense experience shines through in his writing. Couple that with some unique page design and entertaining graphics, and it's hard to not sit through and read the book from end to end in one sitting. In fact, that's *exactly* what he designed the book for! For those of us who have been working on the web for a very long time, it's amazing how much we take for granted and just "assume". But the audience of our site(s) may be far less sophisticated, and the only way to understand usable web design is to see things through fresh eyes. His pragmatic approach to usability testing is refreshing, and is something that you can easily do on any project without having to spend thousands for a full-blown lab. Those findings will drive much of your design and help you to realize what works and what doesn't. And it will probably surprise you what falls into which areas...
This is one of those classic titles on a subject that needs to be read by everyone who makes their living doing web site design. There's absolutely no reason *not* to spend the three or so hours it will take to cover the material. I'm willing to bet it will make a positive impact on your design skills, and your audience will thank you profusely...
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Design Expert Practices What He Preaches in a Most Amusing Manner
Comment: For those of us who do not design Web sites but must distill what makes them effective, this is a great resource. Design and usability expert Steve Krug has pulled together an easy-to-read book that is not only instructive but visually appealing and often amusing. His tenets are basic, but he is smart enough to recognize how everyone has an opinion on Web design and not necessarily a very informed one. Krug's philosophy is that the most effective Web sites come from solid, integrated design that addresses a need tangible to the user. He spends the bulk of the book proving just how valid his philosophy is.
The author cites successful examples recognizable to even the most mundane surfer, for example, the tabular navigation structure of Amazon. But he doesn't shy away from those sites he finds lacking like the now-defunct Productopia site, which I agree had a confusing home page. Krug even presents site redesigns given his druthers, and the improvement is quite discernible. Using the helpful analogy of street signs, the author identifies the criticality of using persistent navigation, clear site sections and utilities and a search tool as components of a highly usable site. In order to engage the reader, Krug provides what he calls "trunk test" sites in which he tests us to identify missing elements and attempts to elicit site improvements. I particularly like this approach since it helps make Krug's guiding principles resonate more clearly.
The last part of the book provides a precise overview of usability testing. He provides helpful examples of questions to ask users and even includes a session transcript he conducted himself. Krug strongly believes in not structuring the testing to the point where honest feedback cannot be attained. In fact, he feels that instead of placing the onus on one expensive scientific test that it makes far more sense to conduct many simple affordable tests from beginning to end. I agree with Krug that the value of testing does not come from the collection of quantitative data but rather the qualitative findings that lead toward better design decisions. Krug expresses some similarly strong opinions about home page design and the credibility of so-called subject matter experts. Fortunately, with a decade under his belt at leading Internet companies like Netscape and AOL, he is certainly someone that deserves your attention.
Customer Rating:
Summary: If you are the big fan, it's ok to buy
Comment: Steve Krug clearly state the the 2nd edition will not change anything that much. He just add more 3 chapters with the reason that the heart of web usability isn't change from the last decade.
The philosophy of 'simply is the best', 'Nice and clean' still working for the interface design business. If you are the big fan of Krug, it's ok to buy it. It still be the classic book for web usability. Actually, I will give the rate only 3 stars, but I add 1 more for the effort of Krug who try to add 'something new' on this edition.
Well, I shouldn't buy the 2nd edition since it should contains the new thing more than this. I expect more new things in the 2nd edition. (Like 'Information Architecture for the WWW' revised their own book in the 2nd edition.)
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