Don’t Make Me Think

by Steve Krug

February 12, 2022

“Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited,” by Steve Krug, gives a reasonable approach to usability design. This short book explains using critical features and thought processes in web development and design. It has a huge advantage in that it teaches UX how to deliver exceptional user experiences in a polite manner. It has become a defining text in the industry, leading UX worldwide and educating people how to think like usability experts. As a User Experience and Developer professional, it is critical to consider accessibility and usability, which have the primary goal of assisting us in living a better life because we use the software more than anything else nowadays, and this is a wonderful guideline that will inspire you.

“Don’t make me think,” as the first chapter’s title suggests, is a crucial concept for the designer to realize. A user’s experience with an app or website should be straightforward. The user’s experience should not be given much thought when browsing a website. If there is, it might be disastrous for an organization. Although eBay’s UI isn’t the most attractive, its UX is excellent, and you can buy something on eBay without much consideration. Moreover, one of the most important aspects of Ebay’s outstanding achievement. It has a massive marketplace with whatever you can think of to buy, as well as the possibility to buy things with a single click.

“Why are things usually at the last place you check for them?” says Steve Krug. “Because when you discover them, you stop seeking!”

This quote indicates that Steve Kurg was aware of numerous methods to appeal to audiences by using the important concept that users should browse through a website or app to avoid significant sections of text and instead focus on headlines since users do not spend time reading text. This is the psychology of following through with guidelines that a user must go through. They will not read the instructions until they have tried and failed to run through it on them several times. So, this made me think about how essential it is for applications to have quick and easy onboarding training for first-time users and how important it is for apps to have brief and straightforward onboarding instructions for first-time users. Steve’s writing was very instructional for the readers to comprehend the UX and UI, with many visual aspects that illustrate his books that he integrates into usability testing. At the same time, we all understood the value of usability testing, which is used to collect the data needed to identify usability to improve the design of a website or app.

Overall, as a User Experience major, we may design anything for hours, days, months, or years. When we begin a new project, we have the impression that we know everything there is to know about it, and everything makes sense to me. The fact, however, is that this is not the case for everyone. It is very critical for a product to be simple to use for the first time. When Steven’s explanations perplexed me, I would just google define what he meant and lookup an image in the book that would teach me all I needed to know and his reasoning claim.

Thank you for taking the time to read what I’ve written. I’m a User Experience and Interactive Design student at Drexel University. This book appealed to me since it related to my major, which has always sparked my curiosity in learning more about it, and it was written in a simple manner. If you have any questions or comments, please connect with me on any other social media platforms listed in my profile or send me a DM!