I can’t think of a better intro to the essential points of usability than this presentation by Steve Krug. I especially appreciate his “least you can do” approach. Enjoy.
You’re reading Signal v. Noise, a publication about the web by Basecamp since 1999. Happy !
limqingru
on 06 Jan 10Steve is so funny, I can’t help laughing out loud throughout the whole presentation.
The funniest comment, IMO, and my fav: - We (website designers) are thinking “great literature” - They (website visitors) are thinking “billboard going at 60mph”
limqingru
on 06 Jan 10above comment appeared at 12.25
Ralph
on 06 Jan 10Really? He just mentions the idea of doing the “least you can do”, he doesn’t even start to get into that. All the rest of the talk is just very random stuff about general usability that most of us already knows about anyway.
If you, like me, is interested in this video just for the “least you can do” thing, don’t bother. You’re gonna waste a full hour of your life.
Tyler Hayes
on 06 Jan 10Speaking of usability, I can’t wait until the day when I’m not broken hearted at 3am because 1) Flash isn’t supported on my Droid, so I can’t view this video, and 2) at some point hopefully Flash will be deprecated anyway on the Web, and we’ll have to look for a more uniform standard that encompasses all Internet touch points, including mobile devices. Maybe the next iteration of the HTML5 video tag will be just that.
Grover Saunders
on 06 Jan 10@Ralph That’s actually his whole schtick. He calls it “advanced common sense” because most of it should seem obvious, but it still bears repeating for most people. Not everyone reads usability blogs daily like some of us (especially software developers, which seems to be the primary audience here).
I use “Don’t Make Me Think” as the primary text for my introductory web design course. Big fan of Mr. Krug.
Ben Carlson
on 06 Jan 10I enjoyed it much, but I’ve only read his book, not listened to him speak. I didn’t even notice him mentioning the “least you can do” as Ralph says, if that’s what you’re tuning in for, you’re going to be disappointed. However, if you’ve not read Steven’s book, definitely watch!
-Ben
Brad
on 06 Jan 10Brilliant. I love this guy.
Dave Giunta
on 09 Jan 10Excellent! Thanks for sharing. I’d be interested to know how much, if any user testing 37s uses on their products. My guess, is that you guys probably don’t do any formal user testing, but rather continually watch real user’s actions in the logs, Google Analytics, etc.
I get the sense that because 37s are essentially building software for themselves, they probably feel that if it works well for them, and their target audience are people similar to them, then it’s probably good enough. I wonder what Steve Krug would feel is the appropriate way to do user testing in this scenario.
This discussion is closed.