Don’t Make Me Think! a common sense approach to web usability SECOND EDITION Steve Krug New Riders Publishing Berkeley, California USA t h e h om e pag e i s b e yo n d yo u r co n t ro l The actual Welcome blurb statement ("Our experts provide you with the information you need…") is underneath the promos, and it needs to come before them And, as usual, it’s too long I have to work hard to find the crucial information: editors select products without any influence from manufacturers or advertisers DO YOU KNOW WHERE TO START? There are three clear starting points on the page: > Type something in the prominent search box > Click on one of the categories in the Yahoo-style directory > Click on one of the three featured products (if that’s what they are) The only problem is, if I’m unclear on what the site is, how I decide what to search for or what category to choose? A successful Home page has to tell me what the site is and show me where to start [ 119 ] c h a pt e r THEIR REVISED VERSION While I was writing this chapter, Productopia redesigned their Home page, improving it substantially They eliminated the stray tagline on the right, and put a much better tagline ("We Help You Find the Products You’ll Love") at the top of the area on the left And they shortened the crucial explanation ("Our experts offer unbiased advice to help you choose the product that’s right for you") so that it now stands a chance of being read But it’s still buried at the bottom of what still looks like the featured products section And they moved the Utility links (Editorial Policy, User Reviews, and so on) into a new area at the bottom of the page, but they lumped them together with promos like "Women’s Spring Fashion" and "Do You Cook?" It took me a while to figure out that the two columns were different [ 120 ] t h e h om e pag e i s b e yo n d yo u r co n t ro l MY VERSION I’d start by moving the tagline to the top of the page with the Site ID, making it clear that it’s a descriptor for the entire site I’d also move the Welcome blurb above the promos, and make it more prominent I’d separate the Utility links and the promos at the bottom of the page, grouping the promos with the "featured products" above them on the left side And I’d reformat the awards icons Unlike most Web awards, these four are actually meaningful.(The Digital Time award puts Productopia on a short list of e-commerce sites with Amazon and eBay.) But lining them up across the bottom of the page makes them look like they’re "Bob’s Cool Site of the Day" icons This is a case where you want to be sure you don’t follow a convention [ 121 ] 6789 c h a pt e r “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends” why most web design team arguments about usability are a waste of time, and how to avoid them One man likes to push a plough The other likes to chase a cow But that’s no reason why they can't be friends — oklahoma! , oscar hammerstein ii L eft to their own devices, web development teams aren’t notoriously successful at making decisions about usability questions Most teams end up spending a lot of precious time rehashing the same issues over and over Consider this scene: WEB DESIGN FUNNIES Today’s episode: “Religious Debates” featuring… Rick from Marketing Kim the Project Manager We could use a pulldown menu for the product list Bob the Developer I hate pulldowns Caroline makes a suggestion… Caroline the Designer Well, I don’t think most people mind them And they’d save us a lot of space People don’t like pulldowns My father won’t even go near a site if it uses pulldowns Besides, have you got a better idea? continued… [ 123 ] c h a pt e r …but Bob plays his developer’s trump card Do we know if there’s any research data on pulldowns? I think there might be a problem using pulldowns on the ASP pages from our remote servers Rick attempts an appeal to a higher authority… So, what does everybody think? Should we try using pulldowns? I hate my life Two weeks later… Did we ever make a decision about pulldowns? I usually call these endless discussions “religious debates,” because they have a lot in common with most discussions of religion and politics: They consist largely of people expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can’t be proven—supposedly in the interest of agreeing on the best way to something [ 124 ] t h e fa r m e r a n d t h e cow m a n important (whether it’s attaining eternal peace, governing effectively, or just designing Web pages) And, like most religious debates, they rarely result in anyone involved changing his or her point of view Besides wasting time, these arguments create tension and erode respect among team members, and can often prevent the team from making critical decisions Unfortunately, there are several forces at work in most Web teams that make these debates almost inevitable In this chapter, I’ll describe these forces, and explain what I think is the best antidote “Everybody likes .” All of us who work on Web sites have one thing in common—we’re also Web users And like all Web users, we tend to have strong feelings about what we like and don’t like about Web sites As individuals, we love Flash animations because they’re cool; or we hate them because they take a long time to download We love menus down the left side of each page because they’re familiar and easy to use, or we hate them because they’re so boring We really enjoy using sites with , or we find to be a royal pain And when we’re working on a Web team, it turns out to be very hard to check those feelings at the door The result is usually a room full of individuals with strong personal convictions about what makes for a good Web site And given the strength of these convictions—and human nature—there’s a natural tendency to project these likes and dislikes onto Web users in general: to think that most Web users like the same things we like We tend to think that most Web users are like us He’s right They stink What’s so bad about them? I like pulldowns What’s his problem? People don’t like pulldowns [ 125 ] c h a pt e r It’s not that we think that everyone is like us We know there are some people out there who hate the things we love—after all, there are even some of them on our own Web team But not sensible people And there aren’t many of them Farmers vs cowmen On top of this layer of personal passion, there’s another layer: professional passion Like the farmers and the cowmen in Oklahoma!, the players on a Web team have very different perspectives on what constitutes good Web design based on what they for a living.1 PIZZAZZ! The ideal Web page as seen by someone whose job is… CEO Developer Designer Business development Take designers and developers, for instance Designers tend to think that most people like sites that are visually interesting because they like sites that are visually interesting In fact, they probably became designers because they enjoy good design; they find that it makes things more interesting and easier to understand.2 Developers, on the other hand, tend to think people like sites with lots of cool features because they like sites with lots of cool features The result is that designers want to build sites that look great, and developers want to build sites with interesting, original, elegant features I’m not sure who’s the farmer and who’s the cowman in this picture, but I know that their differences in perspective often lead to conflict—and hard feelings—when it comes time to establish design priorities In the play, the thrifty, God-fearing, family-oriented farmers are always at odds with the freewheeling, loose-living cowmen Farmers love fences, cowmen love the open range Yes, I’m dealing in stereotypes here But I think they’re useful stereotypes [ 126 ] ... family-oriented farmers are always at odds with the freewheeling, loose-living cowmen Farmers love fences, cowmen love the open range Yes, I’m dealing in stereotypes here But I think they’re useful... four are actually meaningful.(The Digital Time award puts Productopia on a short list of e-commerce sites with Amazon and eBay.) But lining them up across the bottom of the page makes them look... And there aren’t many of them Farmers vs cowmen On top of this layer of personal passion, there’s another layer: professional passion Like the farmers and the cowmen in Oklahoma!, the players on