Don’t Make Me Think!
My top 5 highlights of a book that explains good what should be obvious
If you love books and quick reads like this go and give Blinkist a try for absolutely free. What have you got to lose? You only can get smarter.
I use all of these principles that you are about to learn myself.
1. As a user, I should never have to devote a millisecond of thought to whether things are clickable—or not.
I am looking at you Apple calendar for iOS. This is a very obvious one that seemed to get a lot ignored lately in the Flat Design Trend.
2. One of the very few well-documented facts about Web use is that people tend to spend very little time reading most Web pages. Instead, we scan (or skim) them, looking for words or phrases that catch our eye.
Being that this is UX Myth #1 as designers we should optimize much more on quickly readable headlines so I can read them even while just scrolling over the site.
3. We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through.
When did you really take the time to understand a product or even read a manual for the new cool tool you just bought? Every time its just trial and error, because a click on the back button takes much less effort than sitting down focusing your attention and reading about the problem.
4. Create a clear visual hierarchy on each page. Take advantage of conventions. Break pages up into clearly defined areas. Make it obvious what’s clickable. Minimize noise.
By following these 6 rules you just figured out what 80% of good design & usability is. Make things clear. Use established patterns that your users now. And keep the important things important. If you did not know them yet you should probably print them and pin them in Futura on your wall instead of that huge Helvetica poster.
5. The best-kept secret of usability testing is the extent to which it doesn’t much matter who you test.
There is no excuse. Just get 5 friends, colleagues, strangers from the street like Dropbox did recently and let them test what you assumed works. Let them prove you wrong to make it better.
