Hall of Fame
Krug
Steve Krug has had a considerable influence on web
design through his best-selling book 'Don’t Make me Think'.
This was a welcome break from the excesses of text-heavy, over designed,
poorly navigable websites. His theory is based on real practice
and positive results on real web sites. Krug’s first law of
usability is to strive to make things self-evident or self-explanatory,
hence the title ‘Don’t Make Me Think’.
Don’t Make Me Think
He asks a simple question - "how do we really
use the web?" We glance, scan and muddle through. We don’t
read pages, we scan them, choose the first reasonable option, and
because we’re lazy, we meander through content. This is an
important point and, if excesses in design are to be avoided, one
that has to be understood when designing e-learning and web sites.
Writing for the screen
True to his belief that screen readers are different
from print readers, he has strong view on writing for the screen.
Less is more and so he exhorts designers and writers to omit needless
words. In his own words, “Half the number of words and half
again”.
Structure and navigation
Taking his lead from newspapers, always an interesting
source for screen design, he recommends carefully designed hierarchies
and the use of conventions such as shopping carts. This is sound
advice. Conventions are more than just objects of convenience, they
are part of the grammar of interface design. Designers often refuse
to use conventions as they crave creativity and innovation –
this, in his view, is rarely useful. Pages should also be broken
up into carefully defined areas, clickable areas should be obvious
and every attempt made to minimise ‘noise’.
Following on from Norman and Nielsen, he stresses conventions.
Don’t play fast and loose, make things easy and consistent.
He hates navigation that breaks down when you get past the second
level. The solution, he thinks, is persistent global navigation
at the same position on every page with a home button and tracking.
He loves those tabs you get on Amazon. He also makes the useful
distinction between sections of content and utilities such as print,
search and so on, tackles the issue of wide versus deep hierarchies
and the use of breadcrumbs.
Design Options
Sensitive to the needs of the internet as a medium in itself, he
emphasises the importance of the Home page. This leads to reflection
on the importance of the ‘Big Picture’, namely the essential
purpose of the site or e-learning programme. He loves tag lines
that capture the essence of a site or web experience along with
consistency in navigation. Mission statements he hates as they rarely
tell you the real story and usually miss the Big Picture. He also
reviles badly designed rollovers, poorly designed pull down menus,
unnecessary banner ads and the over promotion of other sites. Krug
hates unnecessary noise.
Usability testing
Krug, like Norman and Nielsen is a strong believer in usability
testing. Following Nielsen and Landauer he takes the view that a
few good testers and a few iterations are all you need. Forget the
large-scale focus groups and massive testing, which suffer from
the law of diminishing returns. His practical experience shows that
just one, or a few testers early on are more effective than a large
number at the end.
He recommends evidence gathering with a camcorder and facilitator
who asks questions and gives tasks, especially ‘Get it’
tasks where you probe the user for their understanding of the point
of the experience, how it works and how it is organised. The point
of the facilitator is to probe and ask them not only what they’re
looking at but what they’re thinking. Listen, keep an open
mind and take lots of notes.
An underlying point, made many years before by Dewey and Heidegger
is that technologies work best when they hide themselves in things
and tasks. Technology is at its best when it is invisible. This
is the consistent theme in all good usability theorists and practitioners.
The task of the designer, to make the delivery mechanism as invisible
as possible.
Conclusion
Krug understands the different roles of specialists in design teams
and the tensions that arise between them. His solution is to objectify
the debate through testing, not with the mythical average user,
but with real users. His is a useful, practical and prescriptive
approach to good usability through good design.
Bibliography
Krug S. (2001) Don’t Make me Think
http://www.sensible.com/
Krug’s home page
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