Don’t Make Me Think

1. Don’t Make Me Think Highly Recommend Resource! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Steve Krug

2. It’s a billboard, stupid • Clear visual hierarchy • Take advantage of conventions • Break pages up into clearly defined areas • Make it obvious what’s clickable • Minimize noise

3. Clear visual hierarchy • Make important items more prominent • Things that are logically related should also be related visually • Use nesting to show what’s part of what Books Music Sports Fun Hobbies Music Foo Fighters

4. conventions • Useful – most people now understand a shopping cart • Designers may be reluctant to use • Innovate only when you really have a better idea* * Can anyone tell me how to display file extensions in Windows 7?

5. Use clearly defined areas • Users can figure out what to focus on, what to ignore • Studies: users quickly choose parts of a page that are useful, then almost never look at other parts

6. What’s clickable? • If all the text is colored, users can’t easily identify links arrow pointing away, looks like it’s pointing somewhere else, not like a button SEARCH drkoop.com SEARCH drkoop.com

7. Less noise! • When everything is clamoring for attention, harder to determine what’s really important • Can be lots of tiny bits of noise Health World View Gender Issues Local News Events Health World View Gender Issues Local News Events

8. Mindless choices preferred • What really counts is not the number of clicks it takes to get somewhere, but how hard each click is (amount of thought required) • Exception: if need to drill down same path repeatedly • Don’t make users choose things they may not know (what version do I need, anyway???)

9. Omit needless words • Most of the words on websites are just taking up space (no one will read them, anyway) • Removing half the words is a realistic goal • Reduces noise level • Makes useful content more prominent • Makes pages shorter, less scrolling

10. Happy talk must die • Self-congratulatory • No useful information • Focus on how great we are, not what we can do for you • Often used on front pages of site (whose real purpose is just navigation)

11. Instructions must die • No one will read them (until after repeated attempts at muddling through have failed) The following questionnaire is designed to provide us with information that will help us improve the site and make it more relevant to your needs. Please select your answers from the drop-down menus and radio buttons below. The questionnaire should only take you 2-3 minutes to complete. At the bottom of this form you can choose to leave your name, address and telephone number. If you leave your name and number, you may be contacted in the future to participate in a survey to help us improve the site. If you have comments or concerns that require a response please contact Customer Service.

12. example The following questionnaire is designed to provide us with information that will help us improve the site and make it more relevant to your needs. Please select your answers from the drop-down menus and radio buttons below. The questionnaire should only take you 2-3 minutes to complete. At the bottom of this form you can choose to leave your name, address and telephone number. If you leave your name and number, you may be contacted in the future to participate in a survey to help us improve the site. If you have comments or concerns that require a response please contact Customer Service. Happy talk Most users won’t need If do need, they won’t understand radio buttons or drop-down Not useful at this point Good to know, but how do I contact Customer Service?

13. Now in half the words… Please help us improve the site by answering these questions. It should only take you 2-3 minutes to complete this survey. NOTE: If you have comments or concerns that require a response don’t use this form. Instead, please contact Customer Service. Reduced from 103 to 41 words!