Don’t Make Me Think

A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

By Steve Krug

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About the book

Steve Krug's guide to web usability rests on one premise: a good website or program should let people finish what they came to do as easily and directly as possible. Because users tend to satisfice, taking the first workable option, he says design should work with that habit, and he often points to Amazon.com as a large site that still manages it. The text is short and heavily illustrated, and the stated aim was a book an executive could read on a two-hour plane trip. First released in 2000, it was revised to add chapters on why people leave sites, accessibility and surviving executive design whims, and revised again for a third edition with a chapter on mobile usability.

Wedding Lovely founder Tracy Osborn calls it vital for anyone learning to build websites. Sapaad co-founder Anoop Anthony cut his teeth on it early in his career and says the third edition is still relevant.

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This book has 8 recommendations

Tracy Osborn (Founder/Wedding Lovely)

In terms of web design, Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug — so important for anyone learning how to build websites.

Raluca Radu (Owner/MTH Digital)

I work in digital marketing so I would [recommend]: [...] Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug.

Kaci Lambe Kai (Author, Photographer, Designer)

These three books are about how people actually use design in their lives. They helped me understand this very basic idea: There are no dumb users, only bad designers. Take the time to create based on how your design will be interacted with. Test it. Iterate. That's how you become a good designer.

Marius Ciuchete Paun (Web designer)

Question: Was there a moment, specifically, when something you read in a book helped you?

Answer: Yes there was. In fact, I can remember two separate sentences from two different books:

The first one comes from “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman. It says: “great design will help people figure out what actions are possible without the need for labels or instructions”

The second one comes from “Don't Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. It gives the following advice: "Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left."

Recommended by Auston Bunsen (Co-Founder/CBlocks)

Source: Auston Bunsen, Co-Founder of CBlocks, Learns Something New with Each Book Read

Anoop Anthony (CTO & Co-Founder/Sapaad)

Krug was teaching usability two decades ago when UX wasn't a buzzword, and the WWW was still in its nascent stages. (The first edition of this book was published in 2000!) I cut my teeth on Don't make me think back when I first started out in the industry. It is now in its third edition and still relevant — it offers compelling insights into building great user experiences into websites and applications.

Nicolae Andronic (Founder/Echoz)

I’m a technical guy. I studied the IT field and did software development for a long time until I discovered the business world. So the path for me is to slowly adapt from the clear, technical world, to the fuzzy, way more complex, business world. All the books that I recommend help this transition.
“Don’t Make Me Think” - Steve Krug: for seeing software with the eyes of the user.

Chris Goward (Founder/WiderFunnel & GO Group Digital)

Here are some of the books that have been very impactful for me, or taught me a new way of thinking: [...] Don't Make Me Think.

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