Don’t make me think: I read it so you would want to read it too

Yes, this is a book. No, this one is not like Fahrenheit 451 or Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The answer is simple. It’s not “Nothing important should ever be more than two clicks away” or “Speak the user’s language” or “Be consistent.” It’s… “Don’t make me think!”

tl;dr

Every click is an opportunity, to fail or to succeed. In this book, we take a closer look at a few of the mental models explored and described with a lot of Steve Krug’s personality, that might help you nail User Experience.

We might need some UI work on this one

My experience, and potentially yours

I was born in 2001, born digital and as a good gen-zer I think everything gets old pretty quick, so reading this book I can see a few examples of websites that we don’t see nowadays, or we hope we don’t come across — We can not forget that Aliweb is still alive

Aliweb walked so google could fly

That doesn’t mean that we cannot learn from the fantastic book by Steve Krug, more than fundamentals, insights I wish all designers had are listed in the book, and that’s why I recommend this book especially to:

• Interaction Designers: or whoever is the one doing wireframes, but usually the one with the IxD’s hat. Listen, all the problems that Steve points out in this book could be solved in the wireframe part of your project — If you don’t use lorem ipsum, sorry but we’ve overcome this already — from interface hierarchy, copywriting to site mapping this book gives you advice from the moment you discuss possibilities with teammates to low-fidelity usability tests.
• UI designers: You are going to be the one translating all the concepts of the wireframe into a more realistic prototype. Don’t do it mindlessly, this book will help you evaluate heuristics and concepts to get the most out of the fancy and cool version of the system.

I truly envy Steve Krug’s writing, Don’t make me think has straightforward storytelling and a personal and ingenious tone that made me feel like Steve was talking directly to me.

I’ve worked hard to keep this book short — hopefully short enough so you can read it on a long plane ride.

Old fashioned cover

Key takeaways

Willometer: In the book, we are introduced to a conceptually designated reservoir of goodwill, every time we enter a website this meter is put to the test, it could be a trial by fire or a daisy driving experience. It represents the user’s stress level and can be influenced by many things you cannot control — the context of use, for example. It may also vary by many other things that you do have control over and that’s where you as an IxD have to act and where this abstract is going to focus.

…Keep them ten toes up/ ’Cause if those ten toes down, that means that you fucked up( Tyler the creator)

Make content self-evident: Or at least self-explanatory. Imagine you are designing an e-commerce for shoes. Your goal as a designer is to make the flow of buying a shoe as easy as possible, so the marketing team can brag about their Instagram AD — conversion rates up, bounce rates down. You want to aim for a journey without questions marks, mental chatters, or errors. Start by being obvious:

• Show where they are: The user got into your shoes’ store, why is it cool? Why do your stores deserve 300ms of attention before the customer goes away? Homepage hero section: No small talk, pitch your brand/idea.
• Show where they want to go: Nobody starts crawling between pages like an SEO spider, we are all here for a reason. Show where the user is and where he should begin. How many clicks? Doesn’t matter if they are mindless and aggregate value. Use the most out of progressive disclosure to make every click worth it.
• Show how to get there: Button and links should be clear by having a clear CTA with keyword usage and they should never be confused as an AD. In a few milliseconds, the user should know two things: Is this clickable and where am I going if I click this.
  Bonus tip: Use known concepts such as the Von Restorff Effect or to highlight clickable elements and Fitts Law to make them as easy as possible to access.

And Steve sums up these items very well in the chapter How we really use the web:

1. We have the time to read only what’s necessary;
2. We look for the relevant bits; and
3. We are trained to do so.

The truth is: Most people want to leave your site as soon as they can.

You are no professor X: You don’t read minds and we never know what exactly the user is going to do, even if you follow religiously the 3 concepts presented above. And this unpredictability comes from two things:

1. Users don’t make optimal choices, they satisfy themselves: The user grabs the first thing that might help him reach his goal;
2. Tutorials are boring: maybe taking the time to go through the tutorial will save time later, but it’s more satisfying figuring it out by ourselves.

And all this hedonism should always be well guarded by good usability. Guidance is one way to put it — error prevention, the fifth usability heuristic — no slips should be penalized and no choice should have weights.

This guidance works best when it’s

Brief: The smallest amount of information that will help me

Timely: Placed so I encounter it exactly when I need it

Unavoidable: Formatted in a way that ensures that I’ll notice it

There is an entire article on the Nielsen Norman Group’s website where you can read more about it.

Thoughtful design is transparent and easy to understand, provides a preview, and helps users to easily correct their errors.

“Preventing User Errors: Avoiding Conscious Mistakes”

That’s why I have a tl;dr: Reading? Nowadays people only read books, and for writing articles on Medium. On the internet people only scan. Providing good direction in the smallest chunks of information can be challenging but with some tips, everybody can do it:

If you’re reading this it’s too late I got your attention

1. Use conventions: Another heuristic — the sixth, recognition over recall —users can easily get what you mean by using patterns that they already know.
2. Visual hierarchy: Respect scanning patterns (F and Z) and guide the user’s eyes by using different font sizes and formats.

You might not read this

3. Provide readability: Accessibility comes through when you keep paragraphs short, break them into balanced blocks, use ordered or bullet lists, and highlight key terms.

We’ve all been there: Long product meetings, and that’s part of the job. But testing it’s also, and can solve much more problems than 1 hour and a half meeting, here’s how to do a lean and sustainable test:

• Test early: Every step of the design process is almost always reversible but costly, pivoting is always easy when wireframing.
• Test frequently: To keep it simple, short, and sweet Steve recommends doing once a month

And about the feedback, list the top 3 test problems; prioritize big issues, and bugs that affect UX inside your app; look for low-hanging fruits, and pair a big bug with a small one is always effective and keeps the backlog alive.

Avoid religious debates and biased opinions by bringing relevant data and testing into your routine.

A classic from the book

Don’t make me summarize it

Don’t make me think is a field day of fundamentals, in the book we still have many other tips on how to apply every concept on the homepage, navigations, site mapping, and product management. All of this on a very cool and easy read to add to your list!

One more post from my ongoing series I read so you would want to read it too, where I cover mostly design and business books that I’ve read.

Hope you liked it! Follow me here or on Linkedin to know whenever I post anything. See ya!

There is always a plausible rationale — and a good, if misguided intention — behind every usability flaw

Not you meta, we know all your tricks.