Contents
Preface: About this edition vi
Introduction: Read me first Throat clearing and disclaimers 2
Guiding Principles
Chapter 1. Don’t make me think! 10
Krug’s First Law of Usability
Chapter 2. How we really use the Web 20
Scanning, Satisficing and mudding through
Chapter 3. Billboard Design 101 28
Designing for scanning, not reading
Chapter 4. Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral? 42
Why Users like mindless choices
Chapter 5. Omit needless words 48
The art of not writing for the web
Things you need to get right
Chapter 6. Street signs and Breadcrumbs 54
Designing Nevigation
Chapter 7. The Big Bang Theory of Web Design 84
The importance of getting people off on the right foot
Making Sure you got them Right
Chapter 8. “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends” 102
Why most arguments about usability are a waste of time and how to avoid them
Chapter 9. Usability testing on 10 cents a day 110
Keeping testing simple – so you do enough of it
Chapter 10. Mobile: It’s not just a city in Alabama anymore 142
Welcome to the 21st century
You may experience a slight sense of vertigo
Chapter 11. Usability as common courtesy 164
Why your website should be a Mensch
Chapter 12. Accessibility and you 172
Just when you think you’re done, a cat floats by with buttered toast strapped to its back
Chapter 13. Guide for the perplexed 182
Making usability happen where you live
Acknowledgments 192
Index 196