1. Author: Steve Krug Presented by: Nicole Wilson
DON’T MAKE ME THINK A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Second Edition
Author: Steve Krug
Presented by: Nicole Wilson

2. Krug’s First Law of Usability: Don’t make me think!
“What is the most important thing I should do if I want to make sure my Web site is easy to use?”
“Don’t make me think!”
As far as humanly possible, when I look at a Web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory.
Things that make us think:
Typical culprits are cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, unfamiliar technical names
Links and buttons that aren’t obviously clickable
Search bars: how to search

3. Things that make us think:

4. How we really use the Web: Scanning, satisficing, and muddling through
We’re thinking “great literature” (or at least “product brochure”)
Users reality is much closer to “billboard going by at 60 miles an hour”
Three facts about real-world web use:
We don’t read pages. We scan them.
We don’t make optimal choices. We satisfice.
We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through.

5. How we really use the Web…

6. Billboard Design 101: Designing pages for scanning, not reading
Five important things you can do to make sure users see—and understand—as much of your site as possible:
Create a clear visual hierarchy
Take advantage of conventions
Break pages up into clearly defined areas
Make it obvious what’s clickable
Minimize noise

7. Street signs and Breadcrumbs: Designing Navigation
Different kinds of users:
“Search-dominant” users
“Link-dominant” users
Everyone else
Persistent navigation (or global navigation): describes the set of navigation elements that appear on every page of a site
Should include five elements that you most need to have on hand at all times:
Site ID
A way home
A way to search
Sections
Utilities
Exception to this rule
The Home page
Forms
Page names

8. Street signs and breadcrumbs: Designing Navigation
“You are here” indicators
Accomplished by highlighting my current location in whatever navigational bars, lists, or menus appear on the page
Most common failing = too subtle
Breadcrumbs
Show you where you are
Give users some sense of where they are in the grand scheme of things while still allowing the sub-sites to keep their independent navigation schemes
Breadcrumbs alone are not a good navigation scheme
Breadcrumb “best practices”
Put them at the top
Use > between levels
Use tiny type
Use the words “You are here”
Boldface the last item
Don’t use them instead of a page name
Tabs
They’re self evident
They’re hard to miss
They’re slick
They suggest physical space
Example:

9. Designing Navigation
“You are here” indicators
Breadcrumbs

10. Designing the Home page
The Home page has to accommodate:
Site identity & mission
Site hierarchy
Search
Teases/Content promos/Feature promos
Deals
Shortcuts
Registration
Has to meet a few abstract objectives:
Show me what I’m looking for
…and what I’m not looking for
Show me where to start
Establish creditability & trust
As quickly as possible the Home page must answer these four questions:
What is this?
What do they have here?
What can I do here?
Why am I here—and not somewhere else?
How to get the message across
The tagline
The Welcome blurb
Nothing beats a good tagline!

11. The Home page The Home page has to accommodate:
Site identity & mission
Site hierarchy
Search
Teases/Content promos/Feature promos
Deals
Shortcuts
Registration

12. Usability as a common courtesy
Things that diminish goodwill
Hiding info that I want
Punishing me for not doing things your way
Asking me for information that you don’t really need
Putting sizzle in my way
Your site looks amateurish
Things that increase goodwill
Know the main things that people want to do on your site & make them obvious & easy
Save me steps where ever you can
Put effort into it
Know what questions I’m likely to have, & answer them
Provide me with creature comforts like printer-friendly pages
Make it easy to recover from errors
When in doubt, apologize
Another important component to Web usability: doing the right thing—being considerate of the user
The reservoir of Goodwill
It’s idiosyncratic
It’s situational
You can refill it
Sometimes a single mistake can empty it

13. Thank you
Questions?