Highly
Recommend
Resource!
A Common Sense Approach to Web
Usability
Steve Krug
 Clear
visual hierarchy
 Take advantage of conventions
 Break pages up into clearly defined areas
 Make it obvious what’s clickable
 Minimize noise
 Make
important items more prominent
 Things that are logically related should also
be related visually
 Use nesting to show what’s part of what
Music
Books
Music
Sports
Fun
Hobbies
Foo Fighters
 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?
 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
 If
all the text is colored, users can’t easily
identify links
SEARCH drkoop.com
SEARCH drkoop.com
arrow pointing away, looks
like it’s pointing somewhere
else, not like a button
 When
everything is clamoring for attention,
harder to determine what’s really important
 Can be lots of tiny bits of noise
Health
Health
World View
World View
Gender Issues
Gender Issues
Local News
Local News
Events
Events
 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???)
 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
 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)
 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.
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?
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!