I ran across Steve Krug’s book on web usability back at the beginning of March, as I was preparing presentation material for our corporate summit on knowledge management. The book is appropriately titled Don’t Make Me Think
So what’s with the title? It’s Krug’s first law of usability: Don’t make the visitor think. Websites should give us choices that don’t require deciphering. After all, who’s got time for reverse engineering someone’s convoluted navigation system? Labels that aren’t crystalline descriptions of what we’ll discover when we click on them? Or a more common problem — a mess of links, buttons, menus and options all vying for my click?
We ended up sharing this book with a number of our knowledge managers. Although the rules are somewhat different for an internal enterprise system where the "visitors" are actually employees who are expected to use the system, Krug’s book offers advice that can make the experience more productive and, well, happy.
I did hear some dissenting opinions. "Every website on the Internet is different. People are used to finding their way around many different websites, each with different navigation options, labels, buttons and so on." I suspect once they have a chance to absorb this book, they’ll understand that successful websites avoid frustrating their visitors. Successful websites may indeed look different, but more often than not, they follow well-established patterns. As Krug reminds us, "Conventions are our friends."
I was also asked if I’d be applying some of what I’ve learned from this book on my own websites, BigBlueBall in particular. The short answer is "yes." The slightly longer answer is, "yes, but it’s going to take some time." Thankfully, there are some really wonderful members at BigBlueBall with an endless supply of creativity and suggestions for simplifying and improving the site. Cheers to those who speak up, share their opinion, and make their voice heard!
technorati tags: webdesign, design, usability, review, BigBlueBall, KM
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