Don't Make Me Think by Steve KrugMy rating: 5 Stars
Personally, I hate the title of this book. It's insulting. When people tell me they don't want to think, I look down upon them. Yes, I'm one of those people. If we don't think, I believe the person should just be turned into an animal. (Yes, my BDSM tendencies are coming through here.) Perhaps the author specifically picked this title to be provocative in order to have people like me read it. While I loathed the title, the information in the book was great.
I am impressed with how it was laid out and even better, the clarity in which he explains each of his ideas was the best. I'm no html programmer. I'm not even a web designer. However, I can appreciate this book quite a bit. It is even tying into my work to my surprise. I will be applying many of these guidelines in a project I'm currently working on. I liked his usability test explanation. I definitely need to have people test the sharepoint site we are building. I also liked his explanation of what each person in the project thinks when they want to have a website created. I've decided, I'm a developer who appreciates the designer.
I am more for function versus feature. But if the website is god awful ugly, I'd avoid it too. What Mr. Krug explains is a lot of common sense. It strikes me as sad that we now need books and lessons on common sense. I find that his book on websites can be applicable to more than just website. It works for software design too. Basically, anything that is GUI should follow many of his concepts he touches upon.
I have a blog which I did not design. I'm fortunate enough that the design I picked follows all his guidelines, more or less. There are a couple of items I can do to adjust my website to be more user friendly. I just have to figure out how to add a search box. My recent attempts had all failed. I recommend this book for everyone to read. This book does deserve a 5 star from me because it changed the way I think and see web designs, hopefully for the better.
