(It made me think about usability )dont make me think

About The Author
Steve Krug is a usability consultant who has more than 15 years of experience as a user advocate for companies like Apple, Netscape, AOL, Lexus, and others. Based in part on the success of the first edition of Don’t Make Me Think, he has become a highly sought-after speaker on usability design.

Table Of Contents
Guiding Principles
Don’t make me think: Krug’s First Law of Usability
How we really use the web: Scanning, satisfying, and muddling through
Billboard Design 101: Designing pages fro scanning, not reading
Animal, vegetable, or mineral? : Why users like mindless choices
Omit needless words: The art of not writing for the Web

Things You Need to Get Right
Street signs and Breadcrumbs: Designing navigation
The first step in recovery is admitting that the Home page is beyond your control: Designing the Home Page

Making Sure You Got Them Right
“The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends
Why most Web design team arguments about usability are a waste of time, and how to avoid them
Usability testing on 10 cents a day: Why user testing done simply enough is the cure for all your site’s ills

Larger Concerns and Outside Influences
Usability as common courtesy: Why your Web site should be a mensch
Accessibility, Cascading Style Sheets, and you: Just when you think you’re done, a cat floats by with buttered toast strapped to its back
Help! My boss wants me to__________: When bad design decisions happen to good people


I worked on many web applications but never thought about usability,for one of my future assignments I have started reading this book ,it really added many design principles to my knowledge.It made me think about web usability and web acessibility.

It's short like pragmatic series books (224 pages) and entertaining with pictures like headfirst series books.
It's written so short that can be completed within 2 hours.
It is not only about web usability and accessibility but also written how to attract a user with the help of website.

main motto of the book is design your website such that a user is able to get required information easily and quickly.

Steve krug is not only the preacher ,but also the follower of all the principles mentioned there.
He followed all principles to make his book more useable.
Book is so short ,with good pictures and is easy to use.His writing style is so entertaining with movie dialogues (Godfather2).I love that particular statement similar to godfather2's " If history taught us anything ,It is that we can kill anybody".
according to Steve
Flash is good if it is situatonal and short and will be distracting users if it is lengthy.
with respect to current trends of HTML5 and CSS3 that part is changed,you can create good light weight animations with HTML5 and CSS3 as an alternative to Flash.

principles explained in this book are excellent but examples are outdated

latest technolgoies like HTML5 ,CSS3 and latest Javascript frameworks contributed a lot to web usability.

this book is not for advanced users who have good working experience with HTML5 and CSS3 and Web2.0


current technologies and trends contributing to web usabilty are :

1.now a days search dominant websites like google are very powerful and very much usable.
2.social networking websites like facebook are very easy to use .
3.javscript frameworks are contributing a lot to web usability ex:
impressing toggle effects,drag and drop form controls,easy to use accordion effects,auto complete featurees,sortable form controls and beautiful date pickers.
4.Googles did you mean program making it more usable.

I think Steve may write a sequel to this book/an article including above points .

Best part of the book is :

He gave very valuable information on how to conduct usability test on our websites/applications?.
how much it costs?
who should do it?
who should be part of it?
how to fix usability problems?
which problems to fix ?which not to fix?

as far as concepts discussed are concerned,they are still applicapable.
I only misssed web usability with respect to current technologies and trends.of course this is the old book,we should not expect from the same.
now a days I am regular user of a website stackoverflow.com,site is very easy to use.through out the book while I was reading I was always comparing(in mind) to stackoverflow.com,finally when I went to steve krug's website sensible.com,I saw Joel
Spolsky (co-founder of stackoverflow.com)praising comments on Steve krug's another book on same topic.Then I guessed Joel also implemented some concepts of Steve krug to make his website more usable.
when I browsed his site ,I saw his corporate motto(It’s not rocket surgerysm) at the bottom of page,corporate motto is very important to attract users,I felt he should have used it at more prominent place like on top of page.

some bullet points from the book are :

1.do not make user to think while using your site.
2.tabs are very easy to use
3.things which are logically related are also visually related.
4.try to avoid to use scroll bars.
5.try to avoid pull downs.
6.every website should have logo and a tagline under it.

My rating is 4.5/5
If I read this book 3 years ago, I would have given 5/5.

similar books from other authers.

1.the design of everyday things --by donald norman

other books from Steve Krug

1.rocket surgery made easy -the do it yourself guide to finding and fixing usability problems