Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

This book is excellent -- simple, straightforward and very accessible itself.

As someone with a big interest in print layout and type, both in practice and as an author/publisher Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes working ion the internet, I wanted to improve my practice to match my print practice.

This book has done more for my knowledge of website fundamentals than any other book I have read -- and I have looked at quite a few of them.

Something special about this book: Krug talks about the principles underlying the practical. His discussion of decision-making research and practice, what actually happens when someone approaches a website, is very useful and applicable in all sorts of ways in life.

I am currently redesigning my publishing website; after reading Krug's book, I am now redesigning the redesign.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

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I read this book when I was still an amateur programmer. I since earned a university degree in computer science and am a professional web developer, and I still use the advice given in this book. User friendliness and value to the customer (which go hand in hand) are the most important lessons any programmer can learn.

This book has a (seemingly) intuitive thesis: web sites should be designed with the user in mind. More particularly, the harder one has to work to figure out how to use something, the worse it's designed; web site use should be obvious (or at least self-explanatory). I say "seemingly" intuitive because it ought to be intuitive but a lot of programmers, especially inexperienced ones, forget that.

While this book is geared towards entry-level people, it will serve as an important reminder to seasoned professionals of the basics of good design and user-friendliness. With that said, I think that new designers (who are most prone to poor usability design) and people who feel they have not been designing with the user in mind will benefit the most from reading this book, and much of the advice in this book will be useful even years later.

Steve Krug follows his own advise and lays out the book in such a way that you can absorb the first six chapters, the good ones, in no time, and leaves you with a much better understanding of the problem of making anything usable. Everyone making web sites or software of any sort for use by someone else needs to have read this.

Straightforward, readable, and practical. This book is a must-read for all who are designing a website or thinking about it.

This book gives you tips about how to set up your website so it will be more user-friendly ... and is a funny read as well! So many user manuals are long and dry, but Krug keeps the info down to the bare essentials, and makes the book highly readable and entertaining as well. Highly recommended.

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