This is where I will publish 1 article about UX every day during 100 days. It’s the 100 days challenge about users. Check it out @ aboutusers.com and follow us!

Oct 10, 2016

REVIEW: DON’T MAKE ME THINK (Steve Krug) — DAY 21

Day 21 and we already finished the review of the first book? Great! It’s time for the second one! In my opinion (and pretty much in every UX designer’s opinion), any UX designer MUST read Steve Krug’s Don’t make me think. After understanding the basics of the user-centered design by Garrett, this book is what will really guide our thinking through the users’ minds. Every time you try to understand your users, you should have in mind that they are trying to complete tasks with less effort as possible. They don’t want to think, they don’t want to choose, they don’t want to loose time. Is it all true? That’s what we’ll see on the next articles!

Before the review starts I would like to introduce some points that, for me, make this book really good and useful:

It uses a very, super, easy language: any professional, beginner or not, is able to understand what Mr. Krug is speaking about;
It shows the life as it is. This book don’t assume that you have a big company and a huge budget to perform usability testing, to interview people, or to invest in a big UX team. This is great for one-people teams;
Mr. Krug show us a lot of ‘How to do it’ examples: this is pretty cool as at some point he really gives you alternative solutions from amazon, for example;
He illustrates his main points to make it easy and accessible for anyone.

Well, there are a lot of points that make me enjoy this book, It helped me a lot when I was trying to figure out what UX is about, and how to perform some of its tasks and processes. I hope this upcoming articles help you to start in the field too, and to refresh some concepts if you are already an expert.

Just to make it clear! Even if you are going to read the reviews, I strongly recommend you to read the book too! The book I will review is the revisited version, from 2014, with w00 pages including the index and organized in the following chapters:

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

1- Don’t make me think!

2- How we really use the Web

3- Billboard Design 101

4- Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?

5- Omit needless words

THINGS YOU NEED TO GET RIGHT

6- Street signs and Breadcrumbs

7- The Big Bang Theory of Web Design

MAKING SURE YOU GOT THEM RIGHT

8- “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends”

9- Usability testing on a 10 cents a day

LARGER CONCERNS AND OUTSIDE INFLUENCES

10- Mobile: It’s not just a city in Alabama anymore

11- Usability as common courtesy

12- Accessibility and you

13- Guide for the perplexed

Hope you enjoy the upcoming articles as much as I am enjoying to write about it! If you have questions, suggestions or want to add something, please write in the comments bellow!

#100daysaboutusers

Roberto Pesce

*100 days About Users is a 100 days challenge. If you got interested please visit aboutusers.com and learn more about it!