Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Excellent book about web usability with lots of nice examples
Comment: "Don't Make Me Think" refers to the way people tend to use the web: they don't read they scan. That means that your site needs to be organized to make identification and navigation as instinctive as possible. Having an efficient navigation system and laying out your content to clearly reveal the embedded hierarchy should go a long way towards achieving this goal. Don't forget a good search function.
One of the main point the author want's you to get is that having external users to test your site will give you valuable insights on how you can make it work for them. He walks us through such a test scenario, which is quite useful.
There is also a chapter on accessibility, which is nice and which gives us an easy way to make our site quite accessible to most. My favorite idea is to add a "skip to main content" link to the top of all pages. By styling it with a "display: none" it won't affect any layout would be very useful for blind people using screen readers. Food for hought.
Classification is one topic on which I disagree with the author though it's only noted in a footnote. His view is that "things" should live in one place on your site and if necessary use cross-references to bring people there. I think that "things" should live in all the probable places a user might want to look for it. On one side you have a hierarchy on the other you have a tagging system. Given growing popularity and ubiquity of tags, I think that this won't be much of a stretch for anyone in the near future.
This book was certainly worth reading. I have learnt quite a few things and I recommend it to all web developers.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Practical
Comment: A very accurate and realistic look at the sociology behind user interface development and philosophies on how to deal with it. I recommend this book to all of my front-end developers.
Customer Rating:
Summary: excellent
Comment: An excellent resource for anyone who has any input into web design. Recommended to me by a designer and I find it very usable and an easy, fun read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant - easy to read and understand
Comment: Brilliant book. Very easy to read and digest, infact wonderful usability. I highly recommend this to anyone who builds website from the beginner to the advanced professional.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great & funny book on web usability!
Comment: This is a great book on web usability that is as entertaining as it is informative!
Krug's first law of usability is the title of the book, "Don't make me think!" As his wife describes it, "If something is hard to use, I just don't use it much." And I think that's true for a lot of us.
He notes that most people just scan a page, so you need to act like you're designing billboards when you design your website. He then goes on to provide lots of tips on how to do that.
He also emphasizes cutting out unnecessary words...or as he puts it, "happy talk must die."
This guy is really funny and he definitely knows his stuff. Regardless of whether you're trying to set up your first website or web design is something you do for a living, you'll find everything you need (and nothing you don't) in this great guide to web usability.
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