a FINE Book Review: Don't Make Me Think

Fresh off the presses this year comes Steve Krug’s classic book on UX, Don’t Make Me Think, Revisted. Most, if not all, people involved in any way in the development of digital content should give this a read. Not only has it been established as a go-to book on the basic understanding of web usability, but the new chapters on the evolving mobile landscape alone make it worthy of picking up.

The book is written just as you would expect a book on ease of use should be: it’s short, focused, and to the point. In all, the book may be only a little under two hundred pages (good news designers - most of that is pictures!) but the content within goes far beyond. Krug does a great job of breaking down the importance of visual navigation and user ease to help you make sure your website is as effective as possible.

A lot of the insights here are followed with a “Duh! I know that!” sort of gut reaction. This is what makes this book so great. We all live in the web and believe we have a grasp on its conventions through use, but ask someone to build a website and suddenly those same usability things you love are lost. This book is a great reminder to keep them in check and at the forefront of your design. It explains those feel good ethereal emotions you get from your favorite site and pulls back the curtain to show you what’s happening.

Grab one today for yourself (and probably a few more for the whole team) and take a lazy Sunday to read through it. You’ll bring it to the office, refer to it constantly and begin to wonder how you ever got along without it.